Today marks the twelfth anniversary of Pope Francis' election, a birthday he will spend hospitalized. It's unknown when he'll be able to leave, but at 88 years old and in poor health, the issue isn't when he'll be discharged, but rather whether he'll be fit to return to the Vatican to resume his demanding responsibilities, or whether he'll ultimately end up following a path like his predecessor's when he no longer felt it in his heart to continue; especially considering that Benedict XVI paved the way for this unexpected resignation, an option no pope had taken for more than six centuries. After all, Francis has shown that he cares little for the purple and instead values service greatly.
However and whenever it happens, Francis's hospitalization has placed us before the possibility of a new conclave. In the film of the same name, set in the present, we witness the brutal electoral game and the struggle between conservative and progressive cardinals during the days of his vacancy. It's fiction, but the script notes are taken from real life.
Francisco himself explains in his autobiography Hope (Rosa dels Vents), who, after lunch on the day he was elected, was asked by a cardinal if it was true that he was missing a lung. No, it was a lie. In 1957, his upper lobe was removed. Upon learning the truth, the cardinal turned red, swore, and exclaimed, "These last-minute maneuvers!" Such maneuvers will also occur now, when the ecclesiastical far right also wants to govern. And although the political influence of the Catholic Church is not what it used to be, universal leadership that could serve as a counterweight to so much vulgarity and arrogance that is descending upon us would, at the very least, be a consolation.
