A conclave with a political factor

The Catholic Church has always been divided. From the early years, Peter and Paul had doctrinal and personal differences. The chief apostle considered circumcision essential, while Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles (who had not met Jesus personally), considered the issue of the foreskin and, in general, Jewish doctrine irrelevant. They met several times in Jerusalem and agreed to continue their disagreement, each in his own way. The current divisions, therefore, are nothing new.

In some conclaves, however, political factors have an unusual weight. And this could be one, as the two from 1978 already were. Back then, the attitude towards communism carried a lot of weight. Now, the rise of the extreme right and reactionary movements carries a lot of weight.

In 1949, at the beginning of the Cold War, Pius XII decreed the excommunication of Catholics who promoted communism. Fifteen years later, Paul VI no longer brandished excommunication, but in his first encyclical, Ecclesiam suamo (1964), little written after the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), and with the Cold War at its height, he condemned "ideological systems that deny God and oppress the Church, systems frequently identified with economic, social and political regimes, and among them especially atheistic communism."

In 1978, the Cold War was entering its final phase. After the death of Paul VI, Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, Archbishop of Genoa, seemed to have been assured of election. Indeed, it was even said that he had already been elected in the 1958 conclave and that he had resigned in favor of what would become John XXIII. Then, as (it must be emphasized), the fundamental difference between "conservatives" and "progressives" consisted of the position regarding the innovations of the Second Vatican Council.

But Siri, besides being a conservative, was fiercely anti-communist. The Eastern European bishops feared that his election would unleash a wave of anti-Catholic repression in communist countries, and they ultimately opted, almost unanimously, for a "good and communicative" man, Albino Luciani, John Paul I.

The death of John Paul I after only 33 days of papacy He forced a new conclave and raised the question of communism once again. The progressives united around Giovanni Benelli, and the conservatives again grouped around Siri. The positions of all groups were irreconcilable. It was then that, at the suggestion of Austria, the option of a pope from, precisely, a communist country arose. Opus Dei had long promoted the figure of the Cardinal of Krakow, the Polish Karol Wojtyla. And he was the chosen one. His anti-communist crusade and his personal triumph, when the Soviet empire began to collapse in 1989, are well known.

Political Fracture and Global Trumpism

Now, after the years of Francis, the deep division remains rooted in the Second Vatican Council and in the position on issues such as Contraceptive practices, divorce, homosexuality, ritual, or the role of women in the management of Catholicism, to which is added the horrific issue of ecclesiastical pedophilia. And the political fracture is centered on what we could generically call "global Trumpism": the preponderance of the rich over the poor, the lack of charity toward immigrants, the lack of solidarity, authoritarianism, etc.

Not all conservative cardinals are Trumpists. These, in reality, constitute a small group led by the American Raymond Burke and with prominent figures such as the German Gerhard Müller or the Guinean Robert Sarah. But they have been very active during the papacy of Francis (whom they have publicly accused of heresy and wished dead on several occasions) and will almost certainly be so in the conclave.

Donald Trump himself, with questionable taste, has fueled the debate by publishing a portrait of himself as the new pope. Francis didn't get along with Donald Trump, his fellow Argentine Javier Milei, or the "new right" in general. The cardinals are aware that the Catholic Church has a salvific mission and, at the same time, must address the earthly problems of its time.

As in 1978, the election of the new pope will require two options: either compromise with a powerful political movement—formerly communism, now Trumpism—or confront it.