The biggest international lobbying effort in the planet is taking place right now, as religious and political forces converge into the Vatican to try to influence the Cardinals into choosing a Pope that they favor.
In one of the few instances that were reported upon, French President Emmanuel Macron was lobbying against Conservative African Cardinal Robert Sarah.
Tomorrow, the college of cardinals will enter the Sistine Chapel and be sealed off from the world, with the Vatican even deactivating cell phone signals.
The Conclave will assemble 133 prelates to choose a successor to the late Pope Francis.
Since electors are not forbidden to take in written materials, some Conservatives have edited a meaningful book to offer the Cardinals.
CNN reported:
“Titled ‘The College of Cardinals Report’, it offers profiles on around 40 papal candidates, including a breakdown on where they stand on topics such as same-sex blessings, ordaining female deacons and the church’s teaching on contraception. The subtext: Choose a pope who will take the church in a different direction to Pope Francis – whose progressive reforms angered some conservatives.”
The report is available online and printed as a large format book. Two Conservative Catholic journalists, British Edward Pentin and American Diane Montagna, have put the work together, and now the book is being handed to cardinals entering and leaving the pre-conclave meetings.
“The creators of the report say they produced the resource to help cardinals get to ‘know one another better’ and that it was compiled by an ‘international and independent team of Catholic journalists and researchers’. It comes ahead of a conclave where the cardinals – a diverse group drawn from 71 countries, many of them appointed by Francis over the last decade – don’t know each other well and have been wearing name badges during their meetings.”
In case you want to learn any more about the cardinals, this site has a lot of information. https://t.co/WzzND3F4uh
— Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone (@ArchCordileone) May 5, 2025
What follows is CNN complaining that a Conservative report has a bias that is… conservative.
“But two church lawyers have told CNN that the report is far from impartial and is an attempt to influence the conclave in an anti-Francis direction. For example, it describes Cardinal Mario Grech, the Maltese prelate who has been tasked with overseeing a major reform process in the Roman Catholic Church, as ‘controversial’, while it heaps praise on US Cardinal Raymond Burke, a prominent critic of Francis.”
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