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Pope Francis has died

(www.reuters.com)
916 points phillipharris | 1 comments | | HN request time: 2.024s | source
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hliyan ◴[] No.43749565[source]
I wonder whether we will have another Jesuit Pope. Jesuits are supposed to be generally very education focused, more progressive (especially w.r.t science) and stand less on ceremony. I know nothing about how the College of Cardinals work, but if they're anything like other political voting bodies, one of two outcomes are possible: a swing to the Right (and toward tradition), recognizing the current balance of power in the world, or a swing even further Left of Francis, again recognizing the current trend but as a counterweight.
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TheOtherHobbes ◴[] No.43751591[source]
Francis spent the last couple of years creating new cardinals to stack the College in what - he hoped - was a more progressive direction.

But the College has a mind of its own, and there is going to be some furious horse trading happening behind the scenes to steer the result in one direction or the other.

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1. skissane ◴[] No.43756833[source]
> Francis spent the last couple of years creating new cardinals to stack the College in what - he hoped - was a more progressive direction.

I don't think that was necessarily what he was doing.

He tried to rebalance it to include a lot more cardinals from the developing world–who on average tend to be more conservative, at least on some issues. He arguably avoided the more outspoken conservatives, but he would have caught up a lot of quieter conservatives in the process.

Whereas, if he just wanted to stack it with progressives, he would have focused on adding cardinals from the developed world, where Catholic progressivism is arguably the strongest.