How Much Does The Church Care About Ideological Continuity? Expert Reveals | Pope Francis? - video Dailymotion

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On "Forbes Newsroom," Don Clemmer, a writer and former staffer with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, discussed ideological continuity after the death of Pope Francis.

Transcript

00:00sense. When we talk about these issues, Pope Francis spoke about climate change,

00:06immigration, the acceptance of LGBTQ members of the church, famously saying, in part,

00:12who am I to judge? That is a partial quote, I should note. How much does the College of

00:18Cardinals care about continuity on these issues? The interesting thing is that Francis kind of

00:27left a lot of things in the oven that won't be done baking for years and even maybe decades after

00:33he's gone. So continuity, you can control some of it and other parts of it's like the avalanche

00:41coming down the mountain, like you're not going to stop it. They might go for a difference in

00:49approach. They might say like, well, Francis was, you know, maybe a little fast and loose with some

00:58of his approach. They could go with someone who's, you know, a little more formal in his approach to

01:08his theology, but who, you know, just thinks that this is still a program worth pursuing.

01:18They'll probably pick someone who's a baby boomer and that'll just bring an entirely different

01:23generational sensibility of how he perceives the world, what he sees as different and just takes

01:30for granted. And some of that would probably play in, uh, almost like, uh, I don't want to say

01:38automatically, but just kind of second nature to a new Pope. Whereas for Francis, it was very

01:43intentional to say, oh, we need to make out, you know, greater, uh, you know, Pat, we need greater

01:48pastoral care for the LGBTQ community or whatever it is. Like, um, so yeah, continuity is tricky and

01:57every, every Pope brings something new to the table. That's interesting. I have a few follow-up

02:04questions there, but I'll start with the age. You mentioned that you, you think it could be a baby

02:07boomer Pope, which means that if it is a baby boomer Pope, we could have a papacy that goes 20 plus

02:13years. Is that something that the College of Cardinals wants, or do they prefer shorter 10 years?

02:21It's, it's, uh, it's tricky. I mean, they, they elected a 78 year old after the 26 year

02:27pontificate of John Paul II. Um, and then he, you know, resigns Benedict the 16th resigns eight years

02:34later. He says he's too old and frail and they say, okay, we'll elected a new guy, Pope Francis,

02:38who's 76, but you know, they opted for another short, uh, comparably short, uh, time. It's, it's,

02:47it's very tricky to pin down. People are living longer. Do you elect somebody who's 70 and still get

02:54a 25 year pontificate? John Paul was 58 when they elected him. Um, you know, it's, it's that double

03:02edged sword of is, is he going to, is he going to live forever or is he young and vital enough to

03:07really, you know, take charge and do the job? So I, I say baby boomer with the understanding that,

03:13you know, the, the oldest boomers, uh, aren't even eligible to vote in the conclave. Um, but that,

03:20uh, but we're going to see a, a, a generational shift for that very reason. Uh, nonetheless.

How Much Does The Church Care About Ideological Continuity? Expert Reveals | Pope Francis?

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