Before he died, Pope Francis made one last gesture towards the Palestinians: he stipulated in his will The Popemobile, the electric vehicle he used to greet crowds around the world, was transformed into a mobile clinic for the children of Gaza. Today, that same vehicle, which the pontiff used during his visit to Bethlehem in 2014, has been converted into a mobile health unit that Christian leaders hope will soon be able to serve in the Gaza Strip.

For those who maintain—and we maintain—that the Church should be less opaque and more open to society, these days are a powerful counterargument: questions of faith cannot be opened to the world, because then the mystery quickly degrades into a vulgar and tacky spectacle, not unlike Eurovision. Rome is a magnificent city, this is obvious, but the Romans have long suffered from a fierce tourist overcrowding (which we also know here, with no less ferocity), now worsened by the floods of parishioners arriving from all over the planet as if they were typhoid Football fans or fans of pop stars. Religious tourism must have been one of the first forms of junk tourism, and it has never gone downhill. The media's constant connections with special envoys dedicated to pushing the artichoke in front of passing tourists, or at best, in front of some cardinal who's passing by quickly, combined with the legion of Vatican experts and conclave analysts who literally emerge from under rocks, like some insects, is killing it.

The transition period after the death of Pope Francis This week ends with the celebration of the conclave, the ritual for electing the new pope. The name comes from Latin cum key (under key) and evokes the secrecy surrounding the ceremony, which is held in the Sistine Chapel, beneath Michelangelo's frescoes.

When Nour Essa landed with her family in Rome on the same plane that was carrying Pope Francis back from his trip to the Greek island of Lesbos in April 2016 She didn't speak a word of Italian. "We had escaped from Damascus in 2015 because my husband, Hassan, had been called up to join the army. We didn't want to go to war; we had no other choice," she explains now from the Italian capital. She is still affected by the Pope's death.

Jordi Valls is the spokesperson for theChristian Association of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals, a group to whom Pope Francis spoke kindly, showing understanding and empathy. However, they have not achieved recognition by the Church because, as the pontiff said, the Vatican maintains that "homosexuality is not a crime, but it is a sin."

Pietro Parolin has so far been considered the favorite to succeed Pope Francis and the candidate with the ability to mediate between the most conservative and most progressive sectors. Appointed by Pope Francis as Secretary of State of the Vatican in 2013, he received the cardinal's hat a year later. In practice, he was more of a prime minister of Francis. A skilled and discreet diplomat, his role was key in the historic 2018 agreement with China that allowed the joint appointment of bishops after Beijing broke off relations with the Holy See in 1951.

Without a strong Church—pyramidal, wealthy, rigid, and powerful—would Jesus' message have survived 2,000 years? No It allows us to excuse the excesses committed throughout history by the popes of Rome. We don't know what the affirmative answer would have yielded. The history of the Church, and more specifically of the papacy, is nothing less than an unbalanced balance between the winning option of Vatican continuity and the alternative of commitment to the poor. These days, amid the fabulous theatrical pomp of Francis's funeral, the late pontiff's desire for Franciscan simplicity has been constantly highlighted. The contradiction between what we saw and what was called exemplifies this unresolved secular tension. A tension also between tradition and modernity in organizational and moral terms: the Church is not democratic and remains sexist.

1It turns out that all this religion stuff no longer interests us at all; but it also turns out that we can't stop talking about it, even if it's bad. So what's the point? The death of Pope Francis has brought this and other picturesque contradictions to the surface (again). The "spiritual supermarket," in Peter Berger's felicitous phrase, is overflowing. It's likely that, in all of human history, no generation has visited as many and as varied temples as it does today. These forays, however, are merely excursions: they are almost never related to a real spiritual feeling but rather to more or less touristy circuits that may include—sometimes in one and the same pack- Gothic cathedrals, Buddhist pagodas, remnants of pagan antiquity, and Catholic cemeteries filled with decaying celebrities. Is spirituality at a low ebb? Yes and no. Never has this notion been so invoked as it is now, but neither has its profound meaning been so eroded. There is no other time in Western history when so many religious cantatas, oratorios, and motets have been heard. In the mid-1990s, the austere monks of Silos competed with Madonna and Prince in top tenDo these forms of spirituality really have any transcendent dimension? Probably not. To argue this, I needed to write an essay that was published in February, which I don't think I can summarize here.

A week after the death of Pope Francis, the cardinals gathered in the new synod hall at the Vatican have announced the start date of the conclave that will name the successor. On May 7, the voting cardinals will close themselves off in the Sistine Chapel to isolate themselves from the world and elect the next leader of the Catholic Church.

The conclave to elect the new leader of the Catholic Church will officially begin on May 7. Its outcome is unpredictable, but the Vatican machinery is already in motion. Conservatives, progressives, traditionalists, reformers 'yes, but not too much'... Francis died leaving a college of cardinals more polarized than ever, divided between those aligned with the progressive Church he promoted and a conservative minority, orphaned by the death of Benedict XVI, who want the new Pope.

The delicate health of Pope Francis and speculation about a possible resignation following in the footsteps of his predecessor had recently led to an almost permanent state of "pre-conclave" in the Vatican. A list of possible successors had been circulating for months. A journey of "papatable" candidates as broad as it was uncertain.

After a weekend of diverse popular emotions (the burial of Pope Francis, the Barça wins the Cup in the Seville final and the Montserrat procession), this morning the harsh reality returns in the form of three important decisions.

It's an amusement park, one of those with bumper cars, trestles, and small arcades... In the past, it must have had its charm, but now it's clearly on the decline. It's called Luna Park and is located in Ostia, a coastal town in the province of Rome, just 30 kilometers from the Italian capital. There, in a caravan, lived Geneviève Jeanningros, the 81-year-old nun who broke protocol last Thursday, slipped into the front row to pray before Pope Francis' coffin and couldn't stop a few tears from escaping.

In form, the conclave seems remote and ceremonious, spiritual, almost magical. However, its dynamics are the same as those in the business world when a founder, or a great charismatic CEO, leaves his position. I would say that the Church faces at least four major challenges in this transition.

Pope Francis's delicate health and speculation about a possible resignation, following in the footsteps of his predecessor, had recently led to an almost permanent state of pre-conclave in the Vatican. For months, a list of possible successors to the Argentine pontiff had been circulating. A list of papal candidates as broad as it was uncertain.

The white smoke that ends up spreading over the Piazza Sant Pere in the Vatican is the result of a meticulous process that culminates with the"Habemus papam". A smoke that, after the death of Pope Francis, will give way to the announcement of the next pontiff once the conclave has found a candidate. This is a procedure with an eight-century tradition after processes that in some cases were chaotic. When did it emerge and why? Is it true that they were left to their own devices until a pope was elected? How have conclaves evolved?

On Tuesday, one of the planes connecting Madrid and Rome was full of priests. Also traveling incognito, in civilian clothes, was a Spanish cardinal, trying to avoid detection. He was going to Italy to bid farewell to Pope Francis, but also to participate in the election of the future leader of the Catholic Church. Rome is abuzz these days. Three-way talks, the occasional clandestine meeting, and whispers in the shadows of the cardinals who will elect the new pontiff. As editor Ignasi Moreta explains, Cardinal Narcís Jubany participated in the two conclaves held by Pope John Paul I and John Paul II in 1978. During those days, some cardinals even had lunch three times in one day. And it is now, in the days leading up to the funeral, that alliances are beginning to form. Sotto voce. Although the election is in the hands of the 135 cardinals under the age of 80, the rest of the members of the College of Cardinals, who are the most experienced, also participate in these days of meetings and agreements. "They have lived through many things, they are influencers, are the ones who will say don't do this or look here," says journalist and professor specializing in religion Míriam Diez.

At the end of the Pope's funeral, journalist Jordi Llisterri congratulated TV3 for "the sobriety and dignity of the broadcast," lamenting that there are times when these kinds of events are portrayed as if they were football matches. The adjectives fit what we saw. Carles Costa divided the table among the experts at the table: the in-house journalist Mireia Prats and Francesc Romeu, a journalist and priest, a frequent contributor on ecclesiastical matters. As has been common since Francis's death, at times the reporting and analysis eventually drifted into an evangelical emotionalism that somewhat lost its detachment. From Rome, Xavi Coral and Ferran Moreno completed the look at a monumental and sumptuous staging. Despite Pope Francis's desire to tone down the Vatican parade and the journalistic inertia of talking about simplicity, the spectacle was majestic and theatrical. The geometric shapes drawn by the orderly crowd of mourners, the architectural design of Sant Pere Square, the uniform chromatic zones created by the religious attire, and the epic visual narrative of the drones and overhead cameras made it inevitable to think of the cinematic influence of Leni Riefen.

The first metro of the morning, the 5:30 a.m. one, was packed as if it were rush hour on any weekday. However, the majority of those traveling were not workers but a sea of people headed to Pope Francis's funeral in Rome. Hours before the ceremony began, the Vatican's Piazza Sant'Pere and the surrounding area were already teeming with people with infinite patience, ready to wait standing or sitting on the ground as long as necessary to pay their last respects to the pontiff. The morning started cold. It was necessary to bundle up.

"Human history is nothing but a long catalogue of calamities"

Candide (Voltaire)

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