{"id":296624,"date":"2025-05-03T10:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T10:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/03\/cardinal-parolin-leader-of-papal-conclave-is-also-a-top-candidate\/"},"modified":"2025-05-03T10:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T10:42:07","slug":"cardinal-parolin-leader-of-papal-conclave-is-also-a-top-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/03\/cardinal-parolin-leader-of-papal-conclave-is-also-a-top-candidate\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinal Parolin, Leader of Papal Conclave, Is Also a Top Candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/05\/03\/multimedia\/03int-parolin-profile-mcpj\/03int-parolin-profile-mcpj-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Cardinal Parolin, Leader of Papal Conclave, Is Also a Top Candidate\" title=\"Cardinal Parolin, Leader of Papal Conclave, Is Also a Top Candidate\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the days surrounding Pope Francis\u2019 death, Cardinal Pietro Parolin was everywhere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The No. 2 figure in the Vatican, he visited Francis in the hospital, and then helped seal the papal apartments after the pope died. He welcomed cardinals he knew from around the world to the pope\u2019s funeral, talking to former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy. And leading up to the conclave to pick the next pope, he celebrated an outdoor Mass for tens of thousands of faithful on the steps of St. Peter\u2019s Basilica.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It seems that everyone knows Cardinal Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, who will preside over the papal election and who has emerged as the leading compromise candidate before a conclave in which many of the more than 130 cardinals do not know one another.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe only candidate that for now has emerged with a certain insistence is Parolin,\u201d said Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Sant\u2019Egidio Community, a Catholic group close to Francis. \u201cHe represents a continuity,\u201d added Mr. Riccardi, who is close to several cardinals who are considered papal contenders. \u201cHe has said, \u2018Virtue stands in the middle.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A quiet, plodding Italian with a famously inscrutable poker face, Cardinal Parolin is deeply cautious. But at a time of global upheaval, that is not necessarily a disqualifier. Even his backers grant that he lacks Francis\u2019 charisma and global symbolism \u2014 but as the leader of the Vatican machinery for the past decade, he enacted Francis\u2019 vision.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Cardinals have talked about Cardinal Parolin as someone who could have a steady, bureaucratic hand on the church\u2019s wheel. And at 70, he could appeal to cardinals who do not want to be stuck too long with the winner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His critics on the left question his past comments about same-sex marriage, which he called a \u201cdefeat for humanity,\u201d and his lack of pastoral experience. His critics on the right criticize his role in the church\u2019s efforts to make inroads in China, which has required negotiations with Communist leaders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But few prelates who know him have strong feelings about him either way. And after the eventful and, for some, divisive dozen years under Francis, bland but competent may be just what the cardinals are looking for.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On migration, for example, whereas Francis excoriated the inhumanity of great powers turning the Mediterranean into a graveyard, Cardinal Parolin said after a meeting with Italy\u2019s right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, that immigration was \u201ca very, very complex subject.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some have drawn parallels to the conclave of 1939. With authoritarianism rising and the world order endangered, those cardinals elected Eugenio Pacelli, a Vatican secretary of state who had served as envoy to Germany in the 1920s during the Nazis\u2019 rise. Historians are still divided over whether he, as Pius XII, took an overly diplomatic approach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And within the church, some liberal Catholics have questioned whether a measured bureaucrat without deep pastoral experience is what the church needs to keep Francis\u2019 inclusive momentum going.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Cardinal Parolin grew up in Schiavon, a small town in the northern Italian region of Veneto that is known as a cradle of popes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He was raised by his mother, an elementary school teacher, after his father, who owned a hardware store, died in a car accident when the boy was 10.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He entered the minor seminary at 14 and was ordained at 25. But Cardinal Parolin\u2019s career was not on the path of being a pastor, or a diocesan priest. He entered the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome, which trains priests to serve in the diplomatic corps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the 1980s, he was stationed in Nigeria during military coups and a civil war. Later, he worked in Mexico to restore diplomatic ties. In 1992, he returned to the Vatican, where he joined the powerful Secretariat of State and served on the Italy desk. He later became the director of the Villa Nazareth school for promising students with poor backgrounds, forming connections to young people who would later join Italy\u2019s elite.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But he also acquired baggage on the way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2002, under John Paul II, Cardinal Parolin became the Vatican\u2019s second most important diplomat, focusing on Vietnam, where he helped normalize relations, and on China, which for many in the church is the great challenge of the coming century.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI tried reconciliation with China, which required its bishops to be loyal to the country\u2019s government rather than to Rome. He chose Cardinal Parolin, who was then an archbishop, to lead the talks over bishops in state-sanctioned churches. The talks stalled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2009, Benedict gave Cardinal Parolin another difficult assignment, as the Vatican\u2019s ambassador to Venezuela, where prelates were in a tense standoff with Hugo Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s leftist government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The cardinal\u2019s charge in Venezuela was more political than theological, and he employed a style that he would later call \u201cpositive neutrality\u201d to press church interests without taking sides between the government and the opposition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Venezuelans credited Cardinal Parolin \u2014 who speaks English, French and near-fluent Spanish with a slight Italian lilt \u2014 with easing tensions between the government and the church. It helped that his approach to diplomacy was rather deliberate and discreet, his supporters have said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His diplomatic focus under Francis extended to the war in Ukraine and relations with Russia and the United States. But China was again a major agenda item as Francis tried anew to improve relations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Cardinal Parolin helped strike a groundbreaking deal in 2018 that amounted to the first formal recognition of the pope\u2019s authority within the church in China. Conservatives considered it a betrayal for Francis to recognize bishops appointed by the Chinese government who had been previously excommunicated. Sharing any church authority, conservatives argued, created dangerous conditions for the millions of Chinese Catholics who worshiped in underground churches loyal to the pope.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But Francis, and Cardinal Parolin, said it was worth it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The church had an \u201cattitude of hope, openness and dialogue that we want to continue on both sides,\u201d Cardinal Parolin said in 2023. All the church asked from China, he said, was that \u201cCatholics can be Catholics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Perhaps the ultimate sign of Cardinal Parolin\u2019s strength headed into the conclave is an apparent effort to stop him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">American right-wing Catholic publications reported in the days before the papal election that he had fainted during one of the general congregation meetings. The incident never occurred, said Matteo Bruni, the Vatican spokesman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s not true,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/03\/world\/europe\/pope-conclave-cardinal-pietro-parolin.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the days surrounding Pope Francis\u2019 death, Cardinal Pietro Parolin was everywhere. The No. 2 figure in the Vatican, he visited Francis in the hospital, and then helped seal the papal apartments after the pope died. He welcomed cardinals he knew from around the world to the pope\u2019s funeral, talking to former President Joseph R. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/05\/03\/multimedia\/03int-parolin-profile-mcpj\/03int-parolin-profile-mcpj-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2309,149190,164764,95673,18714,3096,156,1891,193659,230595,230596,40147,164769,1846],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296626,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296624\/revisions\/296626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}