Italians once ruled the Catholic Church. Will they lead it again?

Boston Globe

01-05-2025

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Italians this time are hopeful but guarded, knowing full well that a church growing fastest in the developing world may see another Italian pope as an ill-advised step backward. On the other hand, Italy has more voting cardinals than any other country, and its contenders, some seen as skillful diplomats, tick boxes that their international peers may see as vital in unstable times, when wars are raging in the Middle East and Europe, and nationalism is reawakening in the West.
It is often said that he who enters a conclave as pope, leaves a cardinal. But Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's powerful secretary of state, and Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Francis's emissary to Russia and Ukraine as well as the archbishop of Bologna, nevertheless rank among the most talked-about contenders. Parolin is viewed as a moderate while Zuppi is seen as more progressive.
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A third contender, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, has not shied from wading into politics in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
An Italian pope makes some practical
sense. Italian remains the lingua franca of Vatican City, serving as the language of documents and official meetings. The pope is also officially the bishop of Rome, and traditionally addresses his local flock in their native tongue. The lack of Italian fluency has been cited as a mark against some
rumored contenders - including Congo's Fridolin Ambongo.
Yet when the overwhelmed Benedict became the first pope in 600 years to retire, Italians were seen as central to the Vatican's problems. Corruption allegations and scandals swirled in the heavily Italian papal staff and Roman Curia, the Vatican's byzantine bureaucracy. The Italian cardinals were also divided by bitter rivalries.
That dynamic is somewhat less prevalent today.
'Surely there was a problem at the time at the end of Benedict because of the scandals in the Roman Curia, but I think this problem is now overcome, it is not so important, and a good pope could come from anywhere, also, of course, from Italy,' Italian Archbishop Bruno Forte said in an interview with The Washington Post.
Italians dominated the papacy from 1523 to 1978, when Pope John Paul II from Poland began a streak of non-Italians that included Benedict, a German, and Francis, the first from Latin America.
Italian popes rank among both the most cherished and chastised in history. In the mid-20th Century, John XXIII, for instance, combated antisemitism and sought to calm tensions during the Cuban missile crisis. The 16th-century Pope Leo X, meanwhile, was a spoiled Medici who fueled his Protestant critics by selling papal indulgences - while also indulging himself in a lavish lifestyle.
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Inés San Martín, vice president of communications for the Pontifical Mission Societies - a missionary network under the pope - said the selection of an Italian pope would signal a parochial turn.
'For a lot of cardinals, who are not from Europe, an Italian would be too insular, would be once again confusing the fact of the Holy See
being
the church," she said. 'But you can't reduce the Catholic Church to the Vatican.'
The energy of the church is not in Italy, she said. 'The strength if you look in numbers is Asia and Africa. If you look at money it's not Italy, it's the U.S. and Germany. For the rest of the world, an Italian pope wouldn't necessarily be good.'
The Italians beg to differ.
Media outlets in Italy have been cautiously heralding the chances of the Italian contenders.
'The party of Italians at the Conclave: Parolin and Zuppi remain the most prominent names. But the historic internal divisions among our cardinals weigh heavily,' declared the Quotidiano Nazionale news website.
'After three pontificates, the [solution] could indeed come from our country,' promised La Stampa newspaper.
Cardinal Camillo Ruini, 94, told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera that the next pope 'may come from anywhere in the world [but] usually Italians have the advantage of being less influenced by their origins, they are more universalists.'
Some argue that the Italian candidates lack the charisma of Francis, or even other contenders now, such as Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, a social media sensation who has gone viral in one video singing verses of John Lennon's 'Imagine.' But Ruini, a critic of Francis, argued that the Argentine suffered from an excess of personality, and had focused too much on those on the peripheries of the faith.
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'Francis seemed to favor those who were distant, to the detriment of those who were close,' Ruini told the newspaper.
The Italian cardinals will not be nearly as dominant in the coming conclave as they once were. But they will still make up the largest single national group with a total of 19 voting members, including 17 national cardinals and the two Italian cardinals serving abroad.
That doesn't mean they form a united bloc.
During the 2013 conclave, Cardinal Scola's prospects were said to have been undone in part by his bitter rivalry with another Italian, Tarcisio Bertone, who was later prosecuted by the Vatican for corruption. This time, Parolin and Zuppi are said to be on warm terms.
The 19 Italian cardinal electors are split between reformists, moderates and traditionalists, with Vatican watchers saying they are likely to put their religious leanings before their nationalities.
'They will be as scattered as they've always been since October 1978,' said Giovanni Maria Vian, former editor of the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, referring to the conclave that elected John Paul II.