May 5, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode, Ryan is joined by Jude Russo and Emily Zanotti to discuss the legacy of Pope Francis, the influence of media on his papacy, and the potential successors to his position. They explore the confusion surrounding his legacy, the centralization of power in the Vatican, and the generational divide within the church. The discussion also touches on the global perspectives of the Catholic Church and the financial challenges it faces, concluding with thoughts on who might be the next Pope. It's a Numbers Game is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
Read Jude Russo's work HERE
Read Emily Zanotti's work HERE
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Gerdoski. A
very exciting time of the year. Elections are starting now
for the twenty twenty five cycle, twenty twenty six cycle
all across the world, which always excites me and I'm
sure excited listeners. Ariy Sabato he is the director of
the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. He's
very well respected on his political analysis, though I think
(00:25):
he's very overblown. I don't respect him that much, but
I think he's worth at least putting a grain of
salt listening to. It's not because he blocked me on
Twitter because I called him out for his big bag
of bullship, but that's besides the point. It's worth just
listening to and just seeing what he says. But he's
very much a mainstream media opinion person anyway. He has
first predictions for the first for the twenty twenty five
(00:46):
twenty twenty six governor's elections. Wasn't that many surprises. He
predicted Democrats have the advantage in flipping the governorship of
Virginia and that Republicans can take the governor's mansion in Kansas.
He said, Arizona and Michigan are the two most competitive states.
They're both occupied by Democrats. Two very quick things, and
the only quick things that I really think are worth
(01:08):
pointing out and putting an emphasis on. He put the
New Jersey governor's race as lean Democrat, which means it's
slightly advantage charge Democrats, but Republicans can come back, which
does a lot given that they have an eight hundred
thousand voter advantage registered voter advantage Democrats do Republicans in
the state. And then he put New York not as
(01:29):
a solid Democrat state, which it typically is, but as
a likely Democrat state. And what does that mean is
that Larry is looking at the tea leaves of the
twenty twenty four election and the great realignment that happen
and saying, yeah, there's these deep blue states, especially for
governor's elections, which are not as hard line and rigid,
(01:51):
and how they vote compared to the presidential election, there
could be some surprises. And if he's saying that, then
the mainstream media will probably also pick up on that,
because he using mouthpiece for what they all institutionally believe.
Kind of interesting worth pointing out. Secondly, across the pond,
there was the election for local governments, for mayoral elections
and by elections. That's basically the British version of special elections,
(02:16):
what they call a special election. There's no real difference
besides called by election anyway. They have the local elections,
mayoral elections and the by election, and the Reform Party,
the Form UK Party led by Nigel Faraj's a populist
conservative party, swept across the country and they even picked
up one of the most labor pro labor that's the
(02:36):
center left party in the UK, most pro labor seats
in the parliament. In the by election speaks volumes to
what's going on in that country and the discomfort and
the growth of the national populist movement which has not
seeded despite Trump being elected. You will always sear people
in the media get a guest on from Canada who
made the same claim, which is just not true. The
(02:58):
national populist movement is growing and it's continuing growing across
the world, despite how unpopular our present may be in
some of these places. We'll see how Farage changes the
consensus of that country and what goes on in the future.
But it was a very good night for Nigel Farage
on Thursday night Friday morning, depending on what time is
(03:18):
on your own. Lastly, and this is what this episode's about.
I want to talk about that another election happening in
the very short term, but very few people are already voting.
This election, and that is the election for the next Pope. Now,
as everyone knows, Pope Francis went to his eternal rest
on May twenty first, and the cardinals are headed to
Rome on May seventh to have a conclave to decide
(03:39):
the next Pope. The man who receives two thirds majority
will be the next head of the Roman Catholic Church,
the largest church in the world, with one point four
billion adherents to the faith. This is a practice, the
conclave that started in the thirteenth century. Now this election
will decide not just the next Pope, but the future
of the Catholic Church. It's no secret that Pope, you know, Francis,
(04:00):
was much more progressive than his predecessor, Probe Benedict. He
envisioned Pope Frances envision a larger Catholic Church that it
welcomes tons of people, even those who didn't have believe
in the doctrine. That they had opened conflicts with the
Catholic Church. He even said atheists go to heaven. Benedict,
on the other hand, believed that the Catholic Church should
(04:22):
become more orthodox, even if it means shrinking in size,
and that we could. You know, it's almost how the
monks treated the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages, where
they would close themselves into their monasteries, and then through
the century of the Dark Age, come out and save
Europe and save European tradition and then reignite the church.
(04:46):
There is a lot of conflict going on within the
Catholic Church because most younger Catholics, especially in America, most
younger Catholic priests are very conservative. They are much more
in line with Benedict's vision of the church in some respects,
and so are a large number of Catholic priests coming
out of Africa. The cardinals who are older, many are
(05:09):
baby boomers or Silent generation. They are much more progressive
than the average twenty year olds coming into the church
and churchly life, and that is a conflict over the
future of the Church of what vision represents it. Eighty
percent of the cardinal's voting were appointed by Francis. That
(05:29):
will play a big part in this. Some of the
potential successors include Cardinal Peter Urdo from Hungary. He's very
critical of mass immigration, He's very conservative. He's probably the
most likely conservative who has a real chance becoming the
next Pope. Cardinal of f Dolan m. Bungo from the
Dominican Republic in the Congo, not the Medican Republic, the
(05:53):
Democratic Proba of the Congo. Everyone who listens to this
podcast knows I can never pronounce a name, so forgive
me as usual. Cardinal Mario Gretch from Malta, Cardinal Pietro
Parolin he's the Vatican Secretary of State, and Cardinals Luis
Tangelli from the Philippines. Those are who the media have
(06:13):
said are the most likely contenders. Now, of course, someone
else can do it, can be appointed pope. There is
not a rule they have to be a current cardinal,
though it is very very likely they will be, but
we'll wait and see. The new Pope does have big
shoes to fill, as Francis was beloved by the media,
by many Western Catholics and many and he was scorned
(06:36):
by many conservative members of the faith. You know, being
a practicing Catholic myself, I have a lot of problems
with some things that Francis did as pope. I think
he was very, very focused on positive news coverage while
ignoring issues that were deeply affecting the church, because he
cared a lot about being in Western media. I remember
(06:57):
a couple of years ago I had a friend who
worked for the church and work for the Vatican, and
they were having the vote to legalize abortion in Ireland
and I messaged him and I said, why isn't frances
going to Ireland to make a speech and defend the
right to life? And the responded with will he be
laughed out of the country and I and I said, well,
(07:18):
you know, Pope Peter died on a cross upside down
for Christ. You know, tell me about being afraid of
being laughed at. You know you want to be laughed at.
Go become a conservative on CNN. Trust me, that's a
hard job. They're there, you know, take a bold stance.
And I thought that a lot of times Francis refused
to do that, and it says, you know a lot
(07:39):
of I think about him. You're not brave from going
to or going to Africa to tell a climate change
or lecturing Hungarians on migrant rights. But I'm not going
to pretend that I know all the pieces moving pieces
when it comes to the church or who could be
the next pope. So I have two very very intelligent
guests who are coming in to delve into the legacy
of France's and insights on who the next possible pope
(08:03):
will be. So stay tuned for that. Judrusso is the
editor at the American Conservative magazine. He's actually my editor
when I write there. It's a fantastic publication that I
highly recommend listeners check out. Emily Zanati is an independent
writer who I followed for a very long time. She's
super smart about all these all papal issues and a
(08:25):
host of others. You can read her brilliant substack growing
olives in Nashville on Emilyzanati dot substack dot com. Thank
you both for being here.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Thanks for having us, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
The first question, I'll direct it towards Emily. What is
Pope Francis's legacy?
Speaker 3 (08:39):
I think a lot of his legacy is ultimately a
bit of confusion. When it comes down to Pope Francis.
I think there is a certain side of him that
is very accessible it's quite liberal in sort of a
more meticense.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
But I think ultimately towards the end, there were a
lot of confusing messages and.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
It left a lot of Catholics kind of not quite
sure where they were.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
It's got a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
But not as many, not as much dogmatic certainty about Catholicism.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
So I think.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Ultimately his legacy is going to be this sort of
long term confusion.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Ultimately, do you think that having so much positive coverage
was worth the drawbacks?
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
I think the most interesting little snippet I've ever seen
of him was he was speaking about how if he
could do one miracle, he would heal all the children.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Right. He was in his office and he's talking about
how he would feel all the children.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
And on the wall behind him in his personal quarters
is a piece of art by a man named Marco Rupnik,
who was excommunicated initially for abuse of nuns, and I
mean not just physical abuse but also personal abuse, spiritual abuse,
(10:17):
abuse of and and he was restored to the priesthood
under Francis. So it's this ultimate kind of see moron
of a papacy. Right, I love being wonderful to children,
but also when it comes to abuse victims, I'm not
listening to them. So I think that's kind of the
(10:38):
Francis papacy in a nutshell.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
What do you think of the idea that he was
focused on media over other things.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I think that there's certainly the case, and I think
that you see this and some of the peculiarities of
his approach to the American Church specifically, he spent a
lot of time for fixating on traditionalists and whether traditionalists,
you know, people who prefer the traditional Latin Mass have
(11:04):
some sort of scheme going on against him. There are
not actually that many Latin masscoers, but they are disproportionately
represented in American Catholic media, especially online, and so he
spent an awful lot of time and a lot of
(11:25):
institutional cloud micromanaging the way that these people go to
mass and the conditions under which they can sort of
practice the type of mass that they want in a
way that was unprecedented even in the immediate post conciliary era.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
What you was saying is correct, there's a million. I
think the essens are there are one million Latin maskowers
in the world. I mean of one point four billion Catholics,
there's one million in the whole world. Whistend. The style
of masks and poet France has spent a lot, a lot,
a lot of time saying on which when they can go,
who could perform it where it could be an enormous
(12:05):
obsession for such a minority of Catholics. Anyway, Sorry, did
you go ahead? I just want to explain for the
non Catholics and.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
That yeah, no, no, I appreciate that, And that's something
worth keeping in mind here as we sort of go
down the rabbit hole. So I think that, you know,
a lot has been made of the fact that Francis
really did chase headlines, but I think that too little
has been made of the fact that he also really
(12:31):
read them. He was in some ways an extremely online pope,
the way that you know, a certain president is extremely
on Twitter. And that was weird.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
One of the basic problems facing the modern papacy, especially
from about nineteen forty on, is the problem of mass media,
which allows for a sort of central eye control within
the church that was previously undreamt of. You know what
(13:06):
doesn't mean when the pope can you know, get into
headlines or speak directly through radio. This is something that
the church, you know, administratively, has had a hard time
sort of figuring out. And I think that Francis shows
the sort of terminus of a certain line of development,
which is this is really cool. We can sort of
(13:28):
sweep aside all of the other power bases and interests
in the church, and I can just throw grenades into
people's lives directly by talking to the press or you know,
having people live stream me.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
And then famously would say that when I have the
press misinterpret him, he doesn't speak English, so that's why
it's really their fault.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Great, and this ambiguity is ambiguity is where personal power thrives.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
The fact that he kept things ambiguous and confused meant
that he was that he was the ultimate sort of
judge or arbiter of what was actually going on personally.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
So I think this was a massive centralization of power.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
We entered an era where we talked about clericalism quite
a bit. That Poe Francis was the end of the
clerical era, which means that you know, you're giving all
of the power up to the priestly class, or the
bishops or the administration and instead essentially Poe Francis took
that power, put it back into the Vatican and often
(14:38):
dictated from on high what should have been.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
A pastoral idea. So like the Latin Mass.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
You know, if if your if your flock would prefer
a more traditionalized mass, then.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
That should be your call.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Or if you would like a personal pre litter, then
that should be your call. But Francis basically pulled that
ou all back into that I can both administratively and
personally by doing these, you know, speaking directly often to
the media and circumventing what would have been typical channels
(15:14):
for the last you know, fifteen hundred to two thousand years.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
So the thing about the thing about it is very
interesting because Pope Benedict, which is Poe Francis, his predecessor,
spoke about a vision of a church that was smaller
in size, but more more I guess doctrinally, you know, true, yeah,
more observe it, more religious, more more adherent to the doctrine.
(15:40):
But a smaller church, a smaller than a one point
four billion dollar church. Pote france Is, on the other hand,
sat there and said, no atheists go to heaven, and
let's they did. He did a lot of like touch
and go outreach to gay communities. He did a lot
of He did a lot of outreach towards just people
(16:02):
who made it as easy as possible. You know, there
used to be a thing like even a poach on
Paul the Second where the Easter, the Eastern Christmas Catholics
and the cafeteria Catholics who pick and choose which part
of the religion they want to believe in, which is
you know, probably most Catholics, but though Pope John Paul
the second major overage to them. Francis was like, let's
(16:24):
go past the cafeteria and see if anyone's in the gym,
and they'll be included in it too. The next pope
has a big choice in this in the idea of
what kind of church is he going to reform? And
I want to go over the idea of who's going
to replace him? But before I do, what would be
I mean, is there anyone left with a serious chance
(16:45):
who has the vision that Benedict died of a smaller,
more I guess, devout church than one that Francis had. Emily,
why don't you go first, then we'll go to June.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
There are certainly cardinals in the church who have more
of a Benedict style approach.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
I think Burke and Sarah.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Whether they have a chance of becoming pope is another
matter altogether. They're certainly at the very edge of voting.
Both are seventy eight seventy nine, and there are certainly
other more conservative style cardinals who have the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
We have.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Also, we have to remember that even while.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Francis was trying to reform everything, these reforms never really happened.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
On his watch.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
The things that they wanted quite badly, the synod and senidality,
and the idea of getting married priests and the amazon
and women deacons, they fell flat because ultimately the administration
also didn't want them. We have a younger, more conservative church,
and that's just the reality that the Conclave and many
(17:55):
of these cardinals who are you know, of advanced age,
are going.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
To have to reckon with in the next couple of years.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
We've seen all of these studies that say the priests
that are coming into the church now are more conservative,
they're more traditional, even if they're open to Nova's order,
even if they're open to, you know, sort of a
more liberal approach to some of the dogma. They are
not strayed from that very much.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
And so any pope.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
That comes into this situation is going to have to
wrangle with them. And when you talk about the Latin
mask and tradition, Ando's custotis and putting the feet down
on the Latin mask, and to put down on the
Latin mask, it really grew the Latin mask more than
it did anything else.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
It's part of energize is that same group.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
It was a effect for sure.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It was a strike sand effect of Barber streisand.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, so yeah, but I think Emily Emily is bringing
up an important point that I mentioned earlier in the taping,
is is that there is, like the Canadian elections, for
those who paid attention, there is a generational divide between
baby boomers and Silent generation. More than baby boomers with
Silent generation, cardinals and baby generations who are more liberal,
(19:17):
they are more in the Frances Vane younger priests. Anyone
signing up, especially from a Western country, to be a
priests at this point in this day and age, is
somebody who is very orthodox or pretty orthodox. So that
generational divide between the people leading the church and those
coming up through the ranks is seismic. It's very large. So, Jude,
what do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Well, So, I think that there are two things worth
talking about here. The first one is being careful to
not project the conditions of the American Church on the
rest of the rest of the world. The priesthood is
certainly growing more conservative and younger, and the church generally
(19:59):
more conservative than you in the United States, but this
does not necessarily obtain in like Latin America, where young
people are increasingly becoming Protestant, where you know, you have
trouble getting anybody into the priesthood, but the people that
you do have coming into the priesthood are sort of
(20:20):
a weird mix because of the conditions that obtain in
Latin America. So something that Americans, I think tend not
to have an appreciation of is just how healthy, robust,
and relatively wealthy the American Church is. How we are
in much better condition than the Europeans or the South Americans.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
The African church is really where the population of priests
is growing.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yes, well, and that's an interesting condition in Europe that
we'll have to see how it plays out over the
next you know, however, many years. But a lot of
the priests who actually do perish work in France are
from Africa. They're coming in usually from French speaking portions
of Africa. And basically the way that it works is
(21:05):
it's it's like a period of indentured servitude. You know,
they do their seminary work in France and then they
have to work on the ground for ten years to
pay off their seminary.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
That's a great prison term. It's either ten years in
France or you know, a hard labor whatever comes first.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, So I think that, you know, it's very easy
because the American Church is wealthy, powerful, relatively robust, relatively large,
it's sort of easy to project the way we see
things onto the way they see things at Rome. But
despite the composition of the current you know, weirdness of
(21:47):
how the current set of cardinals is composed, which I
think will probably talk about in the moment, they are
still primarily European, like the plurality is still from Catholic Europe.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
They are, and Italy has the single largest country representation.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Yes, as not intended, but as three Italians, three Italians
talk about global representation, that's well, and this.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Is actually this is actually a very good segue to
talk about the other thing that I think is worth
keeping in mind, which people who don't you know, doggedly
follow Vatican politics, which is say, like normal healthy, well
adjusted people don't necessarily account for, which is that this
is a political process, and as in any political process,
(22:38):
what dominates our particular real material interest.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
The reason that the Italians have a disproportionate say and
what happens is they are the guys right there in Rome.
They are the ones who actually have to run the
central Church.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
It is a very wealthy church in Italy for very
historical reasons. And so they get a bigger say than
the Africans do. Because the Africans, even though they have
a lot of people, and you know, they have a
lot of puts and fuse, Uh, they've got no money.
They've got very little sort of infrastructure as far as
like orders that have assets to go and then go
(23:20):
out and do things elsewhere. They are becoming stronger because
of programmers like we talked about, you know where they
go and are actually supplying the manpower for out of
these sailing you know, core Catholic territories. But they you know,
they are not strong, uh, institutionally yet.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
So I want it ton't just go to who could
possibly be his successor, because this is what everyone wants
to know, Not that we have special insight to it,
but I think there is some logical people that you know,
if you spend time online, especially to non Catholics who
want to get clicks, they share a lot about Cardinal Sarah.
And I'm a big fan of Cardinal Sarah. But he's
(24:01):
too old and too conservative for the position.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I actually think that his age counts for him. I
don't think we're going to I don't think he's too.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Conservative and too contrarian for the position. A great admirer
of his, I think he's if you don't know who
he is, Cardinal Robert Sarah. He's an African cardinal. His
writing is beautiful and smart and very intelligent and very profound,
and you could read him. But I just think, is
there are I'm going to read some some names and
(24:31):
then we'll just talk about I don't have any of
the names, and and if somebody else you know, let
me know. There are the leading contenders, according to the media,
which take it for it, was was Peter Ardou, the
cardinal from Hungary. UH fre Dolan m Bongo from Dominic
from Congo, Mario Gresh from Malta, Pietro Parali from He's
the He's the Vatican's Secretary of State, Luis Tangali from
(24:54):
the Philippines. And Pizza Bala, who is Italian but is
from the Italian Aires from he represents like Israel, right,
that's okay, yeah, okay. So and any of those the
leading contenders in your opinion? Is there any and is
any of them a transformational person? I know there's a
(25:16):
lot of interest behind Pizza Bola, first for his name,
but two because I mean he did do a very
heroic thing, which was he did offer his life for
that of the hostages, which is more than you can
say from some people doing something bold and saintly almost
in today's day and age. But Emily, do you is
(25:36):
there anyone that you personally would love to see? And
then two I would likely you know, guess is the
leading contender.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
My family is deeply involved with Pizza Bala, largely because
my husband and that Night of the Holy Supplies of
People Knights or Cardinal Pizza Bala has been at the
head of that organization for a long time.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
So I am a big fan.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I do think he is an interesting story in opposite
very much of Latin.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
You know, he's very tolerant of the Latin mask. He's
very much.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
More of a conservative in those terms, but then also
very worldly. He's very good at being at the forefront
a foreign conflict, which you know he's been in the
center of in.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
A good way.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, he's been a foreign not a bad one.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
It would be most worried about someone like Taglely or Parolin.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
I think Carolin is. Yeah, Taglely is very progressive.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I do not think he's in the front running, simply
because even Pope Francis kicked him out of a high
level job at Carrie Task, which is one of the
service organizations with social organizations within the Church. He was
booted out of there by Francis, so he was not
popular even with that wing of the Vatican.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Herolan is certainly a possibility.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
He's certainly done quite a bit of public work, but
in the last couple of days he's also seemingly turned
everybody off and then had a medical emergency, So I
feel like.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Whatever he may have been at the top, he is
no longer. So it's also anybody's game.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
We've had situations in the past that, you know, the
Holy Spirit has descended on somebody in Saint Peter's square
and they're like, oh, hey, yes, you're the Pope now.
It is entirely possible that someone could come out.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Of left field.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
We all thought hope Francis had come out of left field,
but he was sort of working his way up the
ranks for a long time. I wouldn't anticipate that we're
going to get any real surprises here. But it really
is anybody's game.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
It's not going to be some some pastor from the
middle of Kansas who is that's all of a sudden nominated.
It's not a Disney movie. Jude, what do you do?
I know you had a thumbs up for Pizza Ball
as well. Why do you like him? And who else
do you see as a leading contender? He's very like
pro migrant stuff, right, do I have that correct? Okay?
(28:24):
Kind of, so you're.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Not going to get away from like they're all going
to be a little pro migrant.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Ardo Is from Hungary is very much not pro migrant.
Neither is Carlils either from Africa anyway, But go ahead, Jude, Sorry.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah, no, I think that so. Uh. As I said,
as you were talking about, there are sort of material
conditions of the election, right, the sort of regime analysis
of the Francis years is that this was a disco. Uh,
there was constant institutional reorganization. The Vatican is pretty much broke,
(29:02):
like nobody really wants to talk about it, but you know,
there is a reason that people who try to audit
the Vatican keep getting like shuffled off the scene, and
the whole system works pretty badly when you have institutional
chaos and no money. So I think that uh, Pizza
Bala and some of the other front runners have a
(29:24):
compelling case to make that they're administrators. First, they will
get the fisk in order they will stop this, you know,
constant reconstitution of Rome, the Roman Court into dicastrees, you know,
changing the heads of congregations or departments, you know, on
(29:46):
a constant rolling basis. Uh. So, I think that he
has not unlike a lot of the sort of dophins
of the Francis era, including Prolyn and including Togle, he
does not. He was not associated with any really high
profile wonders. So what counts against Perlin is that he
(30:10):
was instrumental in the Vaticans deal with the Chinese Communist
Party to try to bring the church out from the
underground in China, which was a huge catastrophic failure and
was extremely embarrassing for everybody involved. So Proolin. The problem
(30:30):
is he can't really detach himself from France's failed policies
because he is such a Francis guy. People are going
to say, it's going to be more of the show
that we've had for twelve seasons. Nobody wants that. Whereas
Pizza Baba has sort of kept his nose clean, he
doesn't have, you know, extremely overt ideological commitments that are
(30:51):
going to turn anyone off. And he's young, I actually
think counts against him.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
In his forties or fifties.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
I think that he's sixty two, I.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Would still really realize, which is young for yes, Okay, so.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
In the sixties, I'm doing really good in my research.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
While he's while he's you know, he's remembered for this
sort of courageous act. He's also been critical of Israel's
war in Gaza, which you know is actually a fairly
popular position in the world, even in the United States,
which is the most pro Israel country. Support for Israel
(31:36):
has created twenty points over the past two years.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Here's my, my, my, my attention towards him as this.
And I reached out to something when Ireland had their
vote to legalize abortion. I reached out to someone I
know who worked for the Vatican, said why isn't the
Pope going there? And they said, well, he'll be laughed
out of the country. And I said, and Peter was
hung upside down on a cross. And you're being laughed
out of a country. If you're going to be the
(32:03):
moral authority for one point four billion people and have
to show something. I mean, I don't know the man
at all, but I do believe if let's say Hama said, sure,
you're going to step in for all these hostages, I
think he would have stepped in and offered his life.
That is a tremendously courageous, brave thing to do that
you don't see not only in regular life, but you
(32:26):
don't see from a lot of leaders, and a lot
of leaders, a lot of leaders in the world won't
even put their kids in the military, you know, in
a time of peace, let alone put that any And you.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Have to remember that his constituency is the Christians in
the Holy Land, which are not welcome really in Gaza,
but they're also not welcome.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Really in Jerusalem. So he has a really difficult position.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
And he was very good at articulating where he fell,
who he was there representing. And there's a lot of
talk about continuing on and francis Is legacy in peacemaking.
He stayed in Gaza with his constituency for a lot
of time and bombs are falling on him. I mean,
(33:12):
the church in Jerusalem was a last recue, or the
church in Gaza was the last recues for Christians in
that area.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
And he spoke regularly to Pope Francis.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
And so when you talk about the legacy of France's
tearing on, he has an argument to make that he
was there at the forefront of some of the biggest conflicts,
or in the biggest conflict in the modern era, and
he stayed in the middle of it and he managed it.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, and that's a great point. I mean, that's why
a lot of love was given to the British royal
family who stayed in London while the bombs were falling.
I guess it's a good it's a good analogy. I
have to have to close up the interview, Jude, if
there's anything else besides pizza Bala, is there anybody else
that you would you would envisioned as a leading contender?
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Well as already mentioned, I think that Carolin is pretty
much cute. I think Arado has a better chance than
any of the other so conservative candidates because he has
been a good administrator. He was a good soldier during
the amorris Ley Titsi clown show, which you know has
been forgotten amid all the other clown shows of the
(34:17):
past twelve years. Zupi is somebody we have not mentioned
who is He's the patriarch of Milan. He has a
compelling non a case for being an administrator. He's non ideological.
He also sort of weirdly got a lot of USAID money.
(34:41):
So when we talk about external pressure groups on the church,
you know, I think that the State Department, at least
circa twenty twenty two anointed its man. So I think
that he sort of has a compelling argument to be
the ideological deton candidate. He gets along with both the
(35:01):
Days and the Latin Mass weirdos. He has run a
very large charity organization. He's like Francis but also actually
gets along with people. He's Italian, which counts for him.
He's not grotesquely aged, but also not too young either,
So I think you'd be if you're looking for, you know,
(35:25):
the sort of if you're a degenerate and you're looking
for the most mishandicapped that you could make.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, you're a gambled hope, which I recommend, but I'm
sure I'm sure a betting market for it. Guys. Thank
you both for being here so much. This has been
a lot of fun, definitely not the usual podcast for listeners.
You got everything from the papal tries and effect to
different conspiracies, the State Department in the room, Emily. Where
(35:57):
can people go to get your stuff? They want to
read more from you?
Speaker 4 (36:00):
If they want to read more from me?
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Twitter is the easiest place, or ex Zinati Ean Sinnati
on x and on sub I'm.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Jude American conservaive magazine where people go on your social.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Media, that's right. The American Conservative is the real place
where the important stuff happens. Twitter is where I retweet
pictures from frogging and toad uh so, But yeah, The
American Conservative, which is a great magazine has contributors like
Ryan gr Dusky. Yeah, so you know everybay Please go read, subscribe, donate,
(36:32):
do your thing, share our articles.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Great. All right, thank you guys so much for being
on here and this is awesome. Thank you. Thanks Ryan,
you're listening to It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Gradsky.
We'll be right back, okay for our ask Me Anything
segment and if you want to be part of it,
please send me an email on questions about politics, you know, culture, entertainment, anything,
(36:57):
and I would love to sit there and talk to
you about it. Email me Ryan at Numbers Game Podcast
dot com. That's Ryan at Numbers Plural Numbers Game podcast
dot com and send me some questions and I would
love to sit there and bring them on the show.
I got a odd question from a listener who said,
you mentioned that you went to see the Rolling Stones
when you were a teenager and smoke the worst part
of your life, which is true. I did, what musical
(37:21):
act would you see if you that is no longer
with us. I guess that is dead dead singer. I
would like to see Jennis Joplin, Elvis Presley, James Brown
or Amy Winehouse probably would be one of them. If
I'm in the mood for jazz, I guess either Monk
or Chad Baker or something of that, because I do
love jazz, but that would be it cool question interesting.
(37:43):
Loved it. If you like this podcast, please like and
subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, wherever you listen
to your podcasts. Give us a five star review if
you're feeling generous, and I will speak to you all
on Thursday. Thank you.
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Gerdoski. A
very exciting time of the year. Elections are starting now
for the twenty twenty five cycle, twenty twenty six cycle
all across the world, which always excites me and I'm
sure excited listeners. Ariy Sabato he is the director of
the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. He's
very well respected on his political analysis, though I think
(00:25):
he's very overblown. I don't respect him that much, but
I think he's worth at least putting a grain of
salt listening to. It's not because he blocked me on
Twitter because I called him out for his big bag
of bullship, but that's besides the point. It's worth just
listening to and just seeing what he says. But he's
very much a mainstream media opinion person anyway. He has
first predictions for the first for the twenty twenty five
(00:46):
twenty twenty six governor's elections. Wasn't that many surprises. He
predicted Democrats have the advantage in flipping the governorship of
Virginia and that Republicans can take the governor's mansion in Kansas.
He said, Arizona and Michigan are the two most competitive states.
They're both occupied by Democrats. Two very quick things, and
the only quick things that I really think are worth
(01:08):
pointing out and putting an emphasis on. He put the
New Jersey governor's race as lean Democrat, which means it's
slightly advantage charge Democrats, but Republicans can come back, which
does a lot given that they have an eight hundred
thousand voter advantage registered voter advantage Democrats do Republicans in
the state. And then he put New York not as
(01:29):
a solid Democrat state, which it typically is, but as
a likely Democrat state. And what does that mean is
that Larry is looking at the tea leaves of the
twenty twenty four election and the great realignment that happen
and saying, yeah, there's these deep blue states, especially for
governor's elections, which are not as hard line and rigid,
(01:51):
and how they vote compared to the presidential election, there
could be some surprises. And if he's saying that, then
the mainstream media will probably also pick up on that,
because he using mouthpiece for what they all institutionally believe.
Kind of interesting worth pointing out. Secondly, across the pond,
there was the election for local governments, for mayoral elections
and by elections. That's basically the British version of special elections,
(02:16):
what they call a special election. There's no real difference
besides called by election anyway. They have the local elections,
mayoral elections and the by election, and the Reform Party,
the Form UK Party led by Nigel Faraj's a populist
conservative party, swept across the country and they even picked
up one of the most labor pro labor that's the
(02:36):
center left party in the UK, most pro labor seats
in the parliament. In the by election speaks volumes to
what's going on in that country and the discomfort and
the growth of the national populist movement which has not
seeded despite Trump being elected. You will always sear people
in the media get a guest on from Canada who
made the same claim, which is just not true. The
(02:58):
national populist movement is growing and it's continuing growing across
the world, despite how unpopular our present may be in
some of these places. We'll see how Farage changes the
consensus of that country and what goes on in the future.
But it was a very good night for Nigel Farage
on Thursday night Friday morning, depending on what time is
(03:18):
on your own. Lastly, and this is what this episode's about.
I want to talk about that another election happening in
the very short term, but very few people are already voting.
This election, and that is the election for the next Pope. Now,
as everyone knows, Pope Francis went to his eternal rest
on May twenty first, and the cardinals are headed to
Rome on May seventh to have a conclave to decide
(03:39):
the next Pope. The man who receives two thirds majority
will be the next head of the Roman Catholic Church,
the largest church in the world, with one point four
billion adherents to the faith. This is a practice, the
conclave that started in the thirteenth century. Now this election
will decide not just the next Pope, but the future
of the Catholic Church. It's no secret that Pope, you know, Francis,
(04:00):
was much more progressive than his predecessor, Probe Benedict. He
envisioned Pope Frances envision a larger Catholic Church that it
welcomes tons of people, even those who didn't have believe
in the doctrine. That they had opened conflicts with the
Catholic Church. He even said atheists go to heaven. Benedict,
on the other hand, believed that the Catholic Church should
(04:22):
become more orthodox, even if it means shrinking in size,
and that we could. You know, it's almost how the
monks treated the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages, where
they would close themselves into their monasteries, and then through
the century of the Dark Age, come out and save
Europe and save European tradition and then reignite the church.
(04:46):
There is a lot of conflict going on within the
Catholic Church because most younger Catholics, especially in America, most
younger Catholic priests are very conservative. They are much more
in line with Benedict's vision of the church in some respects,
and so are a large number of Catholic priests coming
out of Africa. The cardinals who are older, many are
(05:09):
baby boomers or Silent generation. They are much more progressive
than the average twenty year olds coming into the church
and churchly life, and that is a conflict over the
future of the Church of what vision represents it. Eighty
percent of the cardinal's voting were appointed by Francis. That
(05:29):
will play a big part in this. Some of the
potential successors include Cardinal Peter Urdo from Hungary. He's very
critical of mass immigration, He's very conservative. He's probably the
most likely conservative who has a real chance becoming the
next Pope. Cardinal of f Dolan m. Bungo from the
Dominican Republic in the Congo, not the Medican Republic, the
(05:53):
Democratic Proba of the Congo. Everyone who listens to this
podcast knows I can never pronounce a name, so forgive
me as usual. Cardinal Mario Gretch from Malta, Cardinal Pietro
Parolin he's the Vatican Secretary of State, and Cardinals Luis
Tangelli from the Philippines. Those are who the media have
(06:13):
said are the most likely contenders. Now, of course, someone
else can do it, can be appointed pope. There is
not a rule they have to be a current cardinal,
though it is very very likely they will be, but
we'll wait and see. The new Pope does have big
shoes to fill, as Francis was beloved by the media,
by many Western Catholics and many and he was scorned
(06:36):
by many conservative members of the faith. You know, being
a practicing Catholic myself, I have a lot of problems
with some things that Francis did as pope. I think
he was very, very focused on positive news coverage while
ignoring issues that were deeply affecting the church, because he
cared a lot about being in Western media. I remember
(06:57):
a couple of years ago I had a friend who
worked for the church and work for the Vatican, and
they were having the vote to legalize abortion in Ireland
and I messaged him and I said, why isn't frances
going to Ireland to make a speech and defend the
right to life? And the responded with will he be
laughed out of the country and I and I said, well,
(07:18):
you know, Pope Peter died on a cross upside down
for Christ. You know, tell me about being afraid of
being laughed at. You know you want to be laughed at.
Go become a conservative on CNN. Trust me, that's a
hard job. They're there, you know, take a bold stance.
And I thought that a lot of times Francis refused
to do that, and it says, you know a lot
(07:39):
of I think about him. You're not brave from going
to or going to Africa to tell a climate change
or lecturing Hungarians on migrant rights. But I'm not going
to pretend that I know all the pieces moving pieces
when it comes to the church or who could be
the next pope. So I have two very very intelligent
guests who are coming in to delve into the legacy
of France's and insights on who the next possible pope
(08:03):
will be. So stay tuned for that. Judrusso is the
editor at the American Conservative magazine. He's actually my editor
when I write there. It's a fantastic publication that I
highly recommend listeners check out. Emily Zanati is an independent
writer who I followed for a very long time. She's
super smart about all these all papal issues and a
(08:25):
host of others. You can read her brilliant substack growing
olives in Nashville on Emilyzanati dot substack dot com. Thank
you both for being here.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Thanks for having us, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
The first question, I'll direct it towards Emily. What is
Pope Francis's legacy?
Speaker 3 (08:39):
I think a lot of his legacy is ultimately a
bit of confusion. When it comes down to Pope Francis.
I think there is a certain side of him that
is very accessible it's quite liberal in sort of a
more meticense.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
But I think ultimately towards the end, there were a
lot of confusing messages and.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
It left a lot of Catholics kind of not quite
sure where they were.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
It's got a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
But not as many, not as much dogmatic certainty about Catholicism.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
So I think.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Ultimately his legacy is going to be this sort of
long term confusion.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Ultimately, do you think that having so much positive coverage
was worth the drawbacks?
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
I think the most interesting little snippet I've ever seen
of him was he was speaking about how if he
could do one miracle, he would heal all the children.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Right. He was in his office and he's talking about
how he would feel all the children.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
And on the wall behind him in his personal quarters
is a piece of art by a man named Marco Rupnik,
who was excommunicated initially for abuse of nuns, and I
mean not just physical abuse but also personal abuse, spiritual abuse,
(10:17):
abuse of and and he was restored to the priesthood
under Francis. So it's this ultimate kind of see moron
of a papacy. Right, I love being wonderful to children,
but also when it comes to abuse victims, I'm not
listening to them. So I think that's kind of the
(10:38):
Francis papacy in a nutshell.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
What do you think of the idea that he was
focused on media over other things.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I think that there's certainly the case, and I think
that you see this and some of the peculiarities of
his approach to the American Church specifically, he spent a
lot of time for fixating on traditionalists and whether traditionalists,
you know, people who prefer the traditional Latin Mass have
(11:04):
some sort of scheme going on against him. There are
not actually that many Latin masscoers, but they are disproportionately
represented in American Catholic media, especially online, and so he
spent an awful lot of time and a lot of
(11:25):
institutional cloud micromanaging the way that these people go to
mass and the conditions under which they can sort of
practice the type of mass that they want in a
way that was unprecedented even in the immediate post conciliary era.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
What you was saying is correct, there's a million. I
think the essens are there are one million Latin maskowers
in the world. I mean of one point four billion Catholics,
there's one million in the whole world. Whistend. The style
of masks and poet France has spent a lot, a lot,
a lot of time saying on which when they can go,
who could perform it where it could be an enormous
(12:05):
obsession for such a minority of Catholics. Anyway, Sorry, did
you go ahead? I just want to explain for the
non Catholics and.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
That yeah, no, no, I appreciate that, And that's something
worth keeping in mind here as we sort of go
down the rabbit hole. So I think that, you know,
a lot has been made of the fact that Francis
really did chase headlines, but I think that too little
has been made of the fact that he also really
(12:31):
read them. He was in some ways an extremely online pope,
the way that you know, a certain president is extremely
on Twitter. And that was weird.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
One of the basic problems facing the modern papacy, especially
from about nineteen forty on, is the problem of mass media,
which allows for a sort of central eye control within
the church that was previously undreamt of. You know what
(13:06):
doesn't mean when the pope can you know, get into
headlines or speak directly through radio. This is something that
the church, you know, administratively, has had a hard time
sort of figuring out. And I think that Francis shows
the sort of terminus of a certain line of development,
which is this is really cool. We can sort of
(13:28):
sweep aside all of the other power bases and interests
in the church, and I can just throw grenades into
people's lives directly by talking to the press or you know,
having people live stream me.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
And then famously would say that when I have the
press misinterpret him, he doesn't speak English, so that's why
it's really their fault.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Great, and this ambiguity is ambiguity is where personal power thrives.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
The fact that he kept things ambiguous and confused meant
that he was that he was the ultimate sort of
judge or arbiter of what was actually going on personally.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
So I think this was a massive centralization of power.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
We entered an era where we talked about clericalism quite
a bit. That Poe Francis was the end of the
clerical era, which means that you know, you're giving all
of the power up to the priestly class, or the
bishops or the administration and instead essentially Poe Francis took
that power, put it back into the Vatican and often
(14:38):
dictated from on high what should have been.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
A pastoral idea. So like the Latin Mass.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
You know, if if your if your flock would prefer
a more traditionalized mass, then.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
That should be your call.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Or if you would like a personal pre litter, then
that should be your call. But Francis basically pulled that
ou all back into that I can both administratively and
personally by doing these, you know, speaking directly often to
the media and circumventing what would have been typical channels
(15:14):
for the last you know, fifteen hundred to two thousand years.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
So the thing about the thing about it is very
interesting because Pope Benedict, which is Poe Francis, his predecessor,
spoke about a vision of a church that was smaller
in size, but more more I guess doctrinally, you know, true, yeah,
more observe it, more religious, more more adherent to the doctrine.
(15:40):
But a smaller church, a smaller than a one point
four billion dollar church. Pote france Is, on the other hand,
sat there and said, no atheists go to heaven, and
let's they did. He did a lot of like touch
and go outreach to gay communities. He did a lot
of He did a lot of outreach towards just people
(16:02):
who made it as easy as possible. You know, there
used to be a thing like even a poach on
Paul the Second where the Easter, the Eastern Christmas Catholics
and the cafeteria Catholics who pick and choose which part
of the religion they want to believe in, which is
you know, probably most Catholics, but though Pope John Paul
the second major overage to them. Francis was like, let's
(16:24):
go past the cafeteria and see if anyone's in the gym,
and they'll be included in it too. The next pope
has a big choice in this in the idea of
what kind of church is he going to reform? And
I want to go over the idea of who's going
to replace him? But before I do, what would be
I mean, is there anyone left with a serious chance
(16:45):
who has the vision that Benedict died of a smaller,
more I guess, devout church than one that Francis had. Emily,
why don't you go first, then we'll go to June.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
There are certainly cardinals in the church who have more
of a Benedict style approach.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
I think Burke and Sarah.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Whether they have a chance of becoming pope is another
matter altogether. They're certainly at the very edge of voting.
Both are seventy eight seventy nine, and there are certainly
other more conservative style cardinals who have the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
We have.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Also, we have to remember that even while.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Francis was trying to reform everything, these reforms never really happened.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
On his watch.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
The things that they wanted quite badly, the synod and senidality,
and the idea of getting married priests and the amazon
and women deacons, they fell flat because ultimately the administration
also didn't want them. We have a younger, more conservative church,
and that's just the reality that the Conclave and many
(17:55):
of these cardinals who are you know, of advanced age,
are going.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
To have to reckon with in the next couple of years.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
We've seen all of these studies that say the priests
that are coming into the church now are more conservative,
they're more traditional, even if they're open to Nova's order,
even if they're open to, you know, sort of a
more liberal approach to some of the dogma. They are
not strayed from that very much.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
And so any pope.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
That comes into this situation is going to have to
wrangle with them. And when you talk about the Latin
mask and tradition, Ando's custotis and putting the feet down
on the Latin mask, and to put down on the
Latin mask, it really grew the Latin mask more than
it did anything else.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
It's part of energize is that same group.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
It was a effect for sure.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It was a strike sand effect of Barber streisand.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, so yeah, but I think Emily Emily is bringing
up an important point that I mentioned earlier in the taping,
is is that there is, like the Canadian elections, for
those who paid attention, there is a generational divide between
baby boomers and Silent generation. More than baby boomers with
Silent generation, cardinals and baby generations who are more liberal,
(19:17):
they are more in the Frances Vane younger priests. Anyone
signing up, especially from a Western country, to be a
priests at this point in this day and age, is
somebody who is very orthodox or pretty orthodox. So that
generational divide between the people leading the church and those
coming up through the ranks is seismic. It's very large. So, Jude,
what do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Well, So, I think that there are two things worth
talking about here. The first one is being careful to
not project the conditions of the American Church on the
rest of the rest of the world. The priesthood is
certainly growing more conservative and younger, and the church generally
(19:59):
more conservative than you in the United States, but this
does not necessarily obtain in like Latin America, where young
people are increasingly becoming Protestant, where you know, you have
trouble getting anybody into the priesthood, but the people that
you do have coming into the priesthood are sort of
(20:20):
a weird mix because of the conditions that obtain in
Latin America. So something that Americans, I think tend not
to have an appreciation of is just how healthy, robust,
and relatively wealthy the American Church is. How we are
in much better condition than the Europeans or the South Americans.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
The African church is really where the population of priests
is growing.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yes, well, and that's an interesting condition in Europe that
we'll have to see how it plays out over the
next you know, however, many years. But a lot of
the priests who actually do perish work in France are
from Africa. They're coming in usually from French speaking portions
of Africa. And basically the way that it works is
(21:05):
it's it's like a period of indentured servitude. You know,
they do their seminary work in France and then they
have to work on the ground for ten years to
pay off their seminary.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
That's a great prison term. It's either ten years in
France or you know, a hard labor whatever comes first.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, So I think that, you know, it's very easy
because the American Church is wealthy, powerful, relatively robust, relatively large,
it's sort of easy to project the way we see
things onto the way they see things at Rome. But
despite the composition of the current you know, weirdness of
(21:47):
how the current set of cardinals is composed, which I
think will probably talk about in the moment, they are
still primarily European, like the plurality is still from Catholic Europe.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
They are, and Italy has the single largest country representation.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Yes, as not intended, but as three Italians, three Italians
talk about global representation, that's well, and this.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Is actually this is actually a very good segue to
talk about the other thing that I think is worth
keeping in mind, which people who don't you know, doggedly
follow Vatican politics, which is say, like normal healthy, well
adjusted people don't necessarily account for, which is that this
is a political process, and as in any political process,
(22:38):
what dominates our particular real material interest.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
The reason that the Italians have a disproportionate say and
what happens is they are the guys right there in Rome.
They are the ones who actually have to run the
central Church.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
It is a very wealthy church in Italy for very
historical reasons. And so they get a bigger say than
the Africans do. Because the Africans, even though they have
a lot of people, and you know, they have a
lot of puts and fuse, Uh, they've got no money.
They've got very little sort of infrastructure as far as
like orders that have assets to go and then go
(23:20):
out and do things elsewhere. They are becoming stronger because
of programmers like we talked about, you know where they
go and are actually supplying the manpower for out of
these sailing you know, core Catholic territories. But they you know,
they are not strong, uh, institutionally yet.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
So I want it ton't just go to who could
possibly be his successor, because this is what everyone wants
to know, Not that we have special insight to it,
but I think there is some logical people that you know,
if you spend time online, especially to non Catholics who
want to get clicks, they share a lot about Cardinal Sarah.
And I'm a big fan of Cardinal Sarah. But he's
(24:01):
too old and too conservative for the position.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I actually think that his age counts for him. I
don't think we're going to I don't think he's too.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Conservative and too contrarian for the position. A great admirer
of his, I think he's if you don't know who
he is, Cardinal Robert Sarah. He's an African cardinal. His
writing is beautiful and smart and very intelligent and very profound,
and you could read him. But I just think, is
there are I'm going to read some some names and
(24:31):
then we'll just talk about I don't have any of
the names, and and if somebody else you know, let
me know. There are the leading contenders, according to the media,
which take it for it, was was Peter Ardou, the
cardinal from Hungary. UH fre Dolan m Bongo from Dominic
from Congo, Mario Gresh from Malta, Pietro Parali from He's
the He's the Vatican's Secretary of State, Luis Tangali from
(24:54):
the Philippines. And Pizza Bala, who is Italian but is
from the Italian Aires from he represents like Israel, right,
that's okay, yeah, okay. So and any of those the
leading contenders in your opinion? Is there any and is
any of them a transformational person? I know there's a
(25:16):
lot of interest behind Pizza Bola, first for his name,
but two because I mean he did do a very
heroic thing, which was he did offer his life for
that of the hostages, which is more than you can
say from some people doing something bold and saintly almost
in today's day and age. But Emily, do you is
(25:36):
there anyone that you personally would love to see? And
then two I would likely you know, guess is the
leading contender.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
My family is deeply involved with Pizza Bala, largely because
my husband and that Night of the Holy Supplies of
People Knights or Cardinal Pizza Bala has been at the
head of that organization for a long time.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
So I am a big fan.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I do think he is an interesting story in opposite
very much of Latin.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
You know, he's very tolerant of the Latin mask. He's
very much.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
More of a conservative in those terms, but then also
very worldly. He's very good at being at the forefront
a foreign conflict, which you know he's been in the
center of in.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
A good way.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, he's been a foreign not a bad one.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
It would be most worried about someone like Taglely or Parolin.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
I think Carolin is. Yeah, Taglely is very progressive.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I do not think he's in the front running, simply
because even Pope Francis kicked him out of a high
level job at Carrie Task, which is one of the
service organizations with social organizations within the Church. He was
booted out of there by Francis, so he was not
popular even with that wing of the Vatican.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Herolan is certainly a possibility.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
He's certainly done quite a bit of public work, but
in the last couple of days he's also seemingly turned
everybody off and then had a medical emergency, So I
feel like.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Whatever he may have been at the top, he is
no longer. So it's also anybody's game.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
We've had situations in the past that, you know, the
Holy Spirit has descended on somebody in Saint Peter's square
and they're like, oh, hey, yes, you're the Pope now.
It is entirely possible that someone could come out.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Of left field.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
We all thought hope Francis had come out of left field,
but he was sort of working his way up the
ranks for a long time. I wouldn't anticipate that we're
going to get any real surprises here. But it really
is anybody's game.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
It's not going to be some some pastor from the
middle of Kansas who is that's all of a sudden nominated.
It's not a Disney movie. Jude, what do you do?
I know you had a thumbs up for Pizza Ball
as well. Why do you like him? And who else
do you see as a leading contender? He's very like
pro migrant stuff, right, do I have that correct? Okay?
(28:24):
Kind of, so you're.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Not going to get away from like they're all going
to be a little pro migrant.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Ardo Is from Hungary is very much not pro migrant.
Neither is Carlils either from Africa anyway, But go ahead, Jude, Sorry.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah, no, I think that so. Uh. As I said,
as you were talking about, there are sort of material
conditions of the election, right, the sort of regime analysis
of the Francis years is that this was a disco. Uh,
there was constant institutional reorganization. The Vatican is pretty much broke,
(29:02):
like nobody really wants to talk about it, but you know,
there is a reason that people who try to audit
the Vatican keep getting like shuffled off the scene, and
the whole system works pretty badly when you have institutional
chaos and no money. So I think that uh, Pizza
Bala and some of the other front runners have a
(29:24):
compelling case to make that they're administrators. First, they will
get the fisk in order they will stop this, you know,
constant reconstitution of Rome, the Roman Court into dicastrees, you know,
changing the heads of congregations or departments, you know, on
(29:46):
a constant rolling basis. Uh. So, I think that he
has not unlike a lot of the sort of dophins
of the Francis era, including Prolyn and including Togle, he
does not. He was not associated with any really high
profile wonders. So what counts against Perlin is that he
(30:10):
was instrumental in the Vaticans deal with the Chinese Communist
Party to try to bring the church out from the
underground in China, which was a huge catastrophic failure and
was extremely embarrassing for everybody involved. So Proolin. The problem
(30:30):
is he can't really detach himself from France's failed policies
because he is such a Francis guy. People are going
to say, it's going to be more of the show
that we've had for twelve seasons. Nobody wants that. Whereas
Pizza Baba has sort of kept his nose clean, he
doesn't have, you know, extremely overt ideological commitments that are
(30:51):
going to turn anyone off. And he's young, I actually
think counts against him.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
In his forties or fifties.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
I think that he's sixty two, I.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Would still really realize, which is young for yes, Okay, so.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
In the sixties, I'm doing really good in my research.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
While he's while he's you know, he's remembered for this
sort of courageous act. He's also been critical of Israel's
war in Gaza, which you know is actually a fairly
popular position in the world, even in the United States,
which is the most pro Israel country. Support for Israel
(31:36):
has created twenty points over the past two years.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Here's my, my, my, my attention towards him as this.
And I reached out to something when Ireland had their
vote to legalize abortion. I reached out to someone I
know who worked for the Vatican, said why isn't the
Pope going there? And they said, well, he'll be laughed
out of the country. And I said, and Peter was
hung upside down on a cross. And you're being laughed
out of a country. If you're going to be the
(32:03):
moral authority for one point four billion people and have
to show something. I mean, I don't know the man
at all, but I do believe if let's say Hama said, sure,
you're going to step in for all these hostages, I
think he would have stepped in and offered his life.
That is a tremendously courageous, brave thing to do that
you don't see not only in regular life, but you
(32:26):
don't see from a lot of leaders, and a lot
of leaders, a lot of leaders in the world won't
even put their kids in the military, you know, in
a time of peace, let alone put that any And you.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Have to remember that his constituency is the Christians in
the Holy Land, which are not welcome really in Gaza,
but they're also not welcome.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Really in Jerusalem. So he has a really difficult position.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
And he was very good at articulating where he fell,
who he was there representing. And there's a lot of
talk about continuing on and francis Is legacy in peacemaking.
He stayed in Gaza with his constituency for a lot
of time and bombs are falling on him. I mean,
(33:12):
the church in Jerusalem was a last recue, or the
church in Gaza was the last recues for Christians in
that area.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
And he spoke regularly to Pope Francis.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
And so when you talk about the legacy of France's
tearing on, he has an argument to make that he
was there at the forefront of some of the biggest conflicts,
or in the biggest conflict in the modern era, and
he stayed in the middle of it and he managed it.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, and that's a great point. I mean, that's why
a lot of love was given to the British royal
family who stayed in London while the bombs were falling.
I guess it's a good it's a good analogy. I
have to have to close up the interview, Jude, if
there's anything else besides pizza Bala, is there anybody else
that you would you would envisioned as a leading contender?
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Well as already mentioned, I think that Carolin is pretty
much cute. I think Arado has a better chance than
any of the other so conservative candidates because he has
been a good administrator. He was a good soldier during
the amorris Ley Titsi clown show, which you know has
been forgotten amid all the other clown shows of the
(34:17):
past twelve years. Zupi is somebody we have not mentioned
who is He's the patriarch of Milan. He has a
compelling non a case for being an administrator. He's non ideological.
He also sort of weirdly got a lot of USAID money.
(34:41):
So when we talk about external pressure groups on the church,
you know, I think that the State Department, at least
circa twenty twenty two anointed its man. So I think
that he sort of has a compelling argument to be
the ideological deton candidate. He gets along with both the
(35:01):
Days and the Latin Mass weirdos. He has run a
very large charity organization. He's like Francis but also actually
gets along with people. He's Italian, which counts for him.
He's not grotesquely aged, but also not too young either,
So I think you'd be if you're looking for, you know,
(35:25):
the sort of if you're a degenerate and you're looking
for the most mishandicapped that you could make.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, you're a gambled hope, which I recommend, but I'm
sure I'm sure a betting market for it. Guys. Thank
you both for being here so much. This has been
a lot of fun, definitely not the usual podcast for listeners.
You got everything from the papal tries and effect to
different conspiracies, the State Department in the room, Emily. Where
(35:57):
can people go to get your stuff? They want to
read more from you?
Speaker 4 (36:00):
If they want to read more from me?
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Twitter is the easiest place, or ex Zinati Ean Sinnati
on x and on sub I'm.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Jude American conservaive magazine where people go on your social.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Media, that's right. The American Conservative is the real place
where the important stuff happens. Twitter is where I retweet
pictures from frogging and toad uh so, But yeah, The
American Conservative, which is a great magazine has contributors like
Ryan gr Dusky. Yeah, so you know everybay Please go read, subscribe, donate,
(36:32):
do your thing, share our articles.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Great. All right, thank you guys so much for being
on here and this is awesome. Thank you. Thanks Ryan,
you're listening to It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Gradsky.
We'll be right back, okay for our ask Me Anything
segment and if you want to be part of it,
please send me an email on questions about politics, you know, culture, entertainment, anything,
(36:57):
and I would love to sit there and talk to
you about it. Email me Ryan at Numbers Game Podcast
dot com. That's Ryan at Numbers Plural Numbers Game podcast
dot com and send me some questions and I would
love to sit there and bring them on the show.
I got a odd question from a listener who said,
you mentioned that you went to see the Rolling Stones
when you were a teenager and smoke the worst part
of your life, which is true. I did, what musical
(37:21):
act would you see if you that is no longer
with us. I guess that is dead dead singer. I
would like to see Jennis Joplin, Elvis Presley, James Brown
or Amy Winehouse probably would be one of them. If
I'm in the mood for jazz, I guess either Monk
or Chad Baker or something of that, because I do
love jazz, but that would be it cool question interesting.
(37:43):
Loved it. If you like this podcast, please like and
subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, wherever you listen
to your podcasts. Give us a five star review if
you're feeling generous, and I will speak to you all
on Thursday. Thank you.
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