Habemus papam: Catholic Church’s new pope could be one of these cardinals

When the Cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel on May 7 to choose a successor to Pope Francis, they will be looking above all for a holy man who can guide the Catholic Church. (AP)
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Updated 30 April 2025
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Habemus papam: Catholic Church’s new pope could be one of these cardinals

  • There are no official candidates for the papacy, but some cardinals are considered ‘papabile’ or possessing the characteristics necessary to become pope

Wanted: A holy man.
Job description: Leading the 1.4 billion-strong Catholic Church.
Location: Vatican City.
There are no official candidates for the papacy, but some cardinals are considered “papabile,” or possessing the characteristics necessary to become pope. After St. John Paul II broke the centuries-long Italian hold on the papacy in 1978, the field of contenders has broadened considerably.
When the cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel on May 7 to choose a successor to Pope Francis, the first pontiff from Latin America, they will be looking above all for a holy man who can guide the Catholic Church. Beyond that, they will weigh his administrative and pastoral experience and consider what the church needs today.
Here is a selection of possible contenders, in no particular order. The list will be updated as cardinals continue their closed-door, pre-conclave discussions.




Cardinal Pietro Parolin. (AP)

Cardinal Pietro Parolin
Date of Birth: Jan. 17, 1955
Nationality: Italian
Position: Vatican secretary of state under Francis
Experience: Veteran Vatican diplomat
Made a cardinal by: Francis
The 70-year-old veteran diplomat was Francis’ secretary of state, essentially the Holy See’s prime minister.
Though associated closely with Francis’ pontificate, Parolin is much more demure in personality and diplomatic in his approach to leading than the Argentine Jesuit he served and he knows where the Catholic Church might need a course correction.
Parolin oversaw the Holy See’s controversial deal with China over bishop nominations and was involved – but not charged – in the Vatican’s botched investment in a London real estate venture that led to a 2021 trial of another cardinal and nine others. A former ambassador to Venezuela, Parolin knows the Latin American church well and played a key role in the 2014 US-Cuba detente, which the Vatican helped facilitate.
If he were elected, he would return an Italian to the papacy after three successive outsiders: St. John Paul II (Poland), Pope Benedict XVI (Germany) and Francis (Argentina).
But Parolin has very little pastoral experience: He entered the seminary at age 14, four years after his father was killed in a car accident. After his 1980 ordination, he spent two years as a parish priest near his hometown in northern Italy, but then went to Rome to study and entered the Vatican diplomatic service, where he has remained ever since. He has served at Vatican embassies in Nigeria, Mexico and Venezuela.
He is widely respected for his diplomatic finesse on some of the thorniest dossiers facing the Catholic Church. He has long been involved in the China file, and he played a hands-on role in the Holy See’s diplomatic rapprochement with Vietnam that resulted in an agreement to establish a resident Vatican representative in the country.
Parolin was also the Vatican’s point-person in its frustrated efforts to end the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. He has tried to make the church’s voice heard as the Trump administration began working to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Let’s hope we can arrive at a peace that, in order to be solid, lasting, must be a just peace, must involve all the actors who are at stake and take into account the principles of international law and the UN declarations,” he said.
Parolin might find the geopolitical reality ushered in by the Trump administration somewhat unreceptive to the Holy See’s soft power.




Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle. (AP)

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle
Date of Birth: June 21, 1957
Nationality: Filipino
Position: Pro-Prefect, Dicastery for Evangelization under Francis
Experience: Former archbishop of Manila, Philippines
Made a cardinal by: Benedict
Tagle, 67, is on many bookmakers’ lists to be the first Asian pope, a choice that would acknowledge a part of the world where the church is growing.
Francis brought the popular archbishop of Manila to Rome to head the Vatican’s missionary evangelization office, which serves the needs of the Catholic Church in much of Asia and Africa. His role took on greater weight when Francis reformed the Vatican bureaucracy. Tagle often cites his Chinese heritage – his maternal grandmother was part of a Chinese family that moved to the Philippines.
Though he has pastoral, Vatican and management experience – he headed the Vatican’s Caritas Internationalis federation of charity groups before coming to Rome permanently – Tagle would be on the young side to be elected pope, with cardinals perhaps preferring an older candidate whose papacy would be more limited.
Tagle is known as a good communicator and teacher – key attributes for a pope.
“The pope will have to do a lot of teaching, we’ll have to face the cameras all the time so if there will be a communicator pope, that’s very desirable,” said Leo Ocampo, a theology professor at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.
That said, Tagle’s tenure at Caritas was not without controversy and some have questioned his management skills.
In 2022, Francis ousted the Caritas management, including demoting Tagle. The Holy See said an outside investigation had found “real deficiencies” in management that had affected staff morale at the Caritas secretariat in Rome.




Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu. (AP)

Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu
Date of Birth: Jan. 24, 1960
Nationality: Congolese
Position: Archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo
Experience: President of the bishops conferences of Africa and Madagascar
Made a cardinal by: Francis
The 65-year-old Ambongo is one of Africa’s most outspoken Catholic leaders, heading the archdiocese that has the largest number of Catholics on the continent that seen as the future of the church.
He has been archbishop of Congo’s capital since 2018 and a cardinal since in 2019. Francis also appointed him to a group of advisers that was helping reorganize the Vatican bureaucracy.
In Congo and across Africa, Ambongo has been deeply committed to the Catholic orthodoxy and is seen as conservative.
In 2024, he signed a statement on behalf of the bishops conferences of Africa and Madagascar refusing to follow Francis’ declaration allowing priests to offer blessings to same-sex couples in what amounted to continent-wide dissent from a papal teaching. The rebuke crystalized both the African church’s line on LGBTQ+ outreach and Ambongo’s stature within the African hierarchy.
He has received praise from some in Congo for promoting interfaith tolerance, especially on a continent where religious divisions between Christians and Muslims are common.
“He is for the openness of the church to different cultures,” said Monsignor Donatien Nshole, secretary-general of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo, who has long worked with Ambongo.
An outspoken government critic, the cardinal is also known for his unwavering advocacy for social justice.
In a country with high poverty and hunger levels despite being rich in minerals, and where fighting by rebel groups has killed thousands and displaced millions in one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises, he frequently criticizes both government corruption and inaction, as well as the exploitation of the country’s natural resources by foreign powers.
“Congo is the plate from which everyone eats, except for our people,” he said last year during a speech at the Pontifical Antonianum University.
Ambongo’s criticism of authorities has drawn both public admiration and legal scrutiny. Last year, prosecutors ordered a judicial investigation of him after accusing him of “seditious behavior” over his criticism of the government’s handling of the conflict in eastern Congo.




Cardinal Matteo Zuppi. (AP)

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi
Date of Birth: Oct. 11, 1955
Nationality: Italian
Current position: Archbishop of Bologna, Italy, president of the Italian bishops conference
Previous position: Auxiliary bishop of Rome
Made a cardinal by: Francis
Zuppi, 69, came up as a street priest in the image of Francis, who promoted him quickly: first to archbishop of the wealthy archdiocese of Bologna in northern Italy in 2015, before bestowing the title of cardinal in 2019.
He is closely closely affiliated with the Sant’Egidio Community, a Rome-based Catholic charity that was influential under Francis, particularly in interfaith dialogue. Zuppi was part of Sant’Egidio’s team that helped negotiate the end of Mozambique’s civil war in the 1990s and was named Francis’ peace envoy for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
He traveled to Kyiv and Moscow after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to the Holy See for help in winning the release of 19,000 Ukrainian children taken from their families and brought to Russia during the war. The mission also took him to China and the United States.
After making him a cardinal, Francis made clear he wanted him in charge of Italy’s bishops, a sign of his admiration for the prelate who, like Francis, is known as a “street priest” – someone who prioritizes ministering to poor and homeless people and refugees.
Zuppi would be a candidate in Francis’ tradition of ministering to those on the margins, although his relative youth would count against him for cardinals seeking a short papacy.
In a sign of his progressive leanings, Zuppi wrote the introduction to the Italian edition of “Building a Bridge,” by the Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit, about the church’s need to improve its outreach to the LGBTQ+ community.
Zuppi wrote that building bridges with the community was a “difficult process, still unfolding.” He recognized that “doing nothing, on the other hand, risks causing a great deal of suffering, makes people feel lonely, and often leads to the adoption of positions that are both contrasting and extreme.”
Zuppi’s family also has strong institutional ties: His father worked for the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, and his mother was the niece of Cardinal Carlo Confalonieri, dean of the College of Cardinals in the 1960s and 1970s.




Cardinal Peter Erdo. (AP)

Cardinal Peter Erdo
Date of Birth: June 25, 1952
Nationality: Hungarian
Position: Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary
Past experience: Twice elected head of the umbrella group of European bishops conferences
Made a cardinal by: John Paul
Known by his peers as a serious theologian, scholar and educator, Erdo, 72, is a leading contender among conservatives. He has served as the archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest since 2002 and was made a cardinal by John Paul the following year. He has participated in two conclaves, in 2005 and 2013, for the selection of Benedict and Francis.
Holding doctorates in theology and canon law, Erdo, speaks six languages, is a proponent of doctrinal orthodoxy, and champions the church’s positions on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.
Erdo opposes same-sex unions, and has also resisted suggestions that Catholics who remarry after divorce be able to receive communion. He stated in 2015 that divorced Catholics should only be permitted communion if they remain sexually abstinent in their new marriage.
An advocate for traditional family structures, he helped organize Francis’ 2014 and 2015 Vatican meetings on the family.
From 2006 to 2016, Erdo served as president of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences, helping to foster collaboration among Catholic bishops across Europe and to address contemporary issues facing the church on the continent.
While careful to avoid taking part in Hungary’s often tumultuous political life, Erdo has maintained a close relationship with the country’s rightist populist government, which provides generous subsidies to Christian churches.
He has been reluctant to take positions on several of the government’s policies that divided society in Hungary such as public campaigns that villainized migrants and refugees and laws that eroded the rights of LGBTQ+ communities.
When hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers entered Europe in 2015 fleeing war and deprivation in the Middle East and Africa, Erdo emphasized that the church had a Christian duty to provide humanitarian assistance to those in need, but stopped short of the full-throated advocacy for migrants that was one of Francis’ top priorities.


Taiwan accuses China of carrying out ‘provocative’ military patrol near island

Updated 10 sec ago
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Taiwan accuses China of carrying out ‘provocative’ military patrol near island

Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has complained of repeated Chinese military drills and patrols nearby
Taiwan’s defense ministry said that starting mid-afternoon Friday, it had detected 21 Chinese military aircraft

TAIPEI: Taiwan accused China on Friday of raising tensions in the region with a “provocative” military patrol involving warplanes and warships near the island, an unusual public rebuke in what are typically routine accounts of Chinese military activity.

Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has complained of repeated Chinese military drills and patrols nearby. Since President Lai Ching-te took office last year China has held three major rounds of war games.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said that starting mid-afternoon Friday, it had detected 21 Chinese military aircraft, including J-16 fighters, operating with warships to carry out “so-called joint combat readiness patrols” and “harass the airspace and seas around us.”

“The Ministry of National Defense stresses that these acts are highly provocative, fail to pay proper attention to the maritime rights of other countries, bring anxiety and threat to the region, and blatantly undermine the status quo in the region,” it said.

Taiwan regularly reports such Chinese “combat patrols,” but does not generally attach such commentary to its statements.

China’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China says democratically governed Taiwan is its “sacred territory” — a position the government in Taipei strongly rejects — and that it has a right to carry out drills in Chinese territory.

Lai, who last month marked a year in office, is hated by Beijing, which calls him a separatist and has rebuffed his repeated offers for talks.

Lai says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.

‘One hell after another’: US travel ban deepens despair for Afghans awaiting visas

Updated 06 June 2025
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‘One hell after another’: US travel ban deepens despair for Afghans awaiting visas

  • Trump’s sweeping new travel ban on 12 countries, including Afghanistan, will go into effect from Monday
  • Thousands of Afghans have applied for visas to settle in US, either as refugees or under Special Immigrant Visa program 

KABUL: Mehria had been losing hope of getting a visa to emigrate to the United States but her spirits were crushed when President Donald Trump raised yet another hurdle by banning travel for Afghans.

Trump had already disrupted refugee pathways after he returned to power in January but a sweeping new travel ban on 12 countries, including Afghanistan, will go into effect on Monday.

The ban changes little for most Afghans who already faced steep barriers to travel abroad, but many who had hung their hopes on a new life in the United States felt it was yet another betrayal.

“Trump’s recent decisions have trapped not only me but thousands of families in uncertainty, hopelessness and thousands of other disasters,” Mehria, a 23-year-old woman who gave only one name, said from Pakistan, where she has been waiting since applying for a US refugee visa in 2022.

“We gave up thousands of hopes and our entire lives and came here on a promise from America, but today we are suffering one hell after another,” she told AFP.

The United States has not had a working embassy in Afghanistan since the Taliban ousted the foreign-backed government in 2021, forcing Afghans to apply for visas in third countries.

The Taliban’s return followed the drawdown of US and NATO troops who had ousted them two decades earlier in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The Taliban government has since imposed a strict view of Islamic law and severe restrictions on women, including bans on some education and work.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have applied for visas to settle in the United States, either as refugees or under the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program reserved for those who aided the US government during its war against the Taliban.

Afghans with SIV visas and asylum cases will not be affected by Trump’s new order but family reunification pathways are threatened, the Afghan-American Foundation said in a statement condemning the ban.

Some 12,000 people are awaiting reunification with family members already living in the United States, according to Shawn VanDiver, the president of the AfghanEvac non-profit group.

“These are not ‘border issues’. These are legal, vetted, documented reunifications,” he wrote on social media platform X. “Without exemptions, families are stranded.”

Refugee pathways and relocation processes for resettling Afghans had already been upset by previous Trump orders, suddenly leaving many Afghans primed to travel to the United States in limbo.

The Trump administration revoked legal protections temporarily shielding Afghans from deportation in May, citing an improved security situation in Afghanistan.

“We feel abandoned by the United States, with whom we once worked and cooperated,” said Zainab Haidari, another Afghan woman who has been waiting in Pakistan for a refugee visa.

“Despite promises of protection and refuge we are now caught in a hopeless situation, between the risk of death from the Taliban and the pressure and threat of deportation in Pakistan,” said Haidari, 27, who worked with the United States in Kabul during the war but applied for a refugee visa.

Afghans fled in droves during decades of conflict, but the chaotic withdrawal of US-led troops from Kabul saw a new wave clamouring to escape Taliban government curbs and fears of reprisal for working with Washington.

Pakistan and Iran have meanwhile ramped up deportation campaigns to expel Afghans who have crossed their borders.

The Taliban authorities have not responded to multiple requests for comment on the new travel ban but have said they are keen to have good relations with every country now that they are in power — including the United States.

Visa options for Afghans are already severely limited by carrying the weakest passport globally, according to the Henley Passport Index.

However, travel to the United States is far from the minds of many Afghans who struggle to make ends meet in one of the world’s poorest countries, where food insecurity is rife.

“We don’t even have bread, why are you asking me about traveling to America?” said one Afghan man in Kabul.

Sahar, a 29-year-old economics graduate who has struggled to find work amid sky-high unemployment, said the new rules will not have any impact on most Afghans.

“When there are thousands of serious issues in Afghanistan, this won’t change anything,” she told AFP.

“Those who could afford to travel and apply for the visa will find another way or to go somewhere else instead of the US.”


Dutch election set for October 29 after government falls

Updated 06 June 2025
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Dutch election set for October 29 after government falls

  • Far-right leader Geert Wilders pulled out of the ruling coalition, bringing down the government
  • The vote in the EU’s fifth-largest economy and major global exporter will be closely watched in Europe

THE HAGUE: The Netherlands will hold snap elections on October 29, authorities announced Friday, after far-right leader Geert Wilders pulled out of the ruling coalition, bringing down the government and sparking political chaos.

“We have officially set the election date: the... elections will take place on Wednesday 29 October 2025,” Interior Minister Judith Uitermark wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“In the coming period, I will work with the municipalities and other stakeholders to prepare so that this important day in our democracy goes smoothly,” added the minister.

The vote in the European Union’s fifth-largest economy and major global exporter will be closely watched in Europe, where far-right parties have made significant electoral gains.

Polls suggest Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) is running neck-and-neck with the Left/Green group of former European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans.

The liberal VVD party stands just behind in the polls, suggesting the election will be closely fought.

The election was prompted by the dramatic withdrawal of Wilders and the PVV from a shaky ruling coalition in a row over immigration policy.

Wilders grumbled that the Netherlands was not fast enough to implement the “strictest-ever” immigration policy agreed by the four-way coalition – and pulled out.

He had stunned the political establishment in the Netherlands by winning November 2023 elections by a significant margin – clinching 37 seats out of the 150 in parliament.

The fractured nature of Dutch politics means no one party is ever strong enough to win 76 seats and govern with an absolute majority.

Wilders persuaded the VVD, the BBB farmers party, and the anti-corruption NSC party to govern with him – but the price was to give up his ambition to become prime minister.

The PVV has apparently lost some support since that election, with recent surveys suggesting they would win around 28 to 30 seats.

But the issue after the coming election will be: who will enter into a coalition with Wilders and the PVV?

There was widespread fury with the far-right leader for bringing down the government over what many saw as an artificial crisis.

Far-right parties have been on the rise across Europe. In May, the far-right Chega (“Enough“) party took second place in Portugal’s elections.

In Germany, the anti-immigration far-right AfD doubled its score in legislative elections in February, reaching 20.8 percent.

And in Britain, polls show the anti-immigration, hard-right Reform UK party of Nigel Farage is making significant gains following a breakthrough in local elections.


Red Cross confirms office closures in Niger and the departure of its foreign staff

Updated 06 June 2025
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Red Cross confirms office closures in Niger and the departure of its foreign staff

  • The ICRC said it had been in dialogue with Niger’s authorities since February to understand the reasons for their decision and provide any necessary clarification but that these efforts were unsuccessful

DAKAR: The International Committee of the Red Cross announced the closure of its offices in Niger and the departure of its foreign staff, four months after the ruling junta ordered the organization to leave the country.
The ICRC confirmed the closure and departure in a statement on Thursday.
“We reiterate our willingness to maintain constructive dialogue with the authorities of Niger with a view to resuming our strictly humanitarian protection and assistance activities,” Patrick Youssef, the ICRC’s regional director for Africa, said in the statement.
In February, Niger’s Foreign Affairs Ministry had ordered the ICRC to close its offices and leave the country. No official reason was given for the military junta’s decision to shut down the organization’s operations in the country at the time.
The ICRC said it had been in dialogue with Niger’s authorities since February to understand the reasons for their decision and provide any necessary clarification but that these efforts were unsuccessful.
On May 31, Niger’s junta leader, Abdourahamane Tchiani, justified the ICRC expulsion on Nigerien state television, accusing the organization of having met with “terrorist leaders” and funding armed groups.
The ICRC refuted the accusations in its statement on Thursday, saying that dialogue with all sides in the conflict is necessary to carry out its humanitarian mandate and that it “never provides financial, logistical, or any other form of support” to armed groups.
The humanitarian organization had been active in the West African country since 1990, mainly helping people displaced by violence by Islamic extremists, food insecurity and natural disasters. According to the organization, it provided humanitarian aid to more than 2 million people in Niger.
Niger’s military rulers took power in a coup two years ago, the latest of several military takeovers in Africa’s Sahel, the vast, arid expanse south of the Sahara Desert that has become a hotspot for extremist violence by militant groups.
Since the coup, Niger has pulled away from its Western partners, such as France and the United States, turning instead to Russia for security.
Last November, the country’s military junta banned the French aid group Acted from working in the country amid tensions with France.


France cools expectations of swift Palestinian state recognition

Updated 06 June 2025
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France cools expectations of swift Palestinian state recognition

  • France is due later this month to co-host with Saudi Arabia a UN conference in New York on a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians

PARIS: France on Friday dampened expectations Paris could rapidly recognize a Palestinian state, with the French foreign minister saying while it was “determined” to make such a move, recognition had to be more than “symbolic.”
France is due later this month to co-host with Saudi Arabia a UN conference in New York on a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
There had been expectations that France could recognize a Palestinian state during that conference, with President Emmanuel Macron also growing increasingly frustrated with Israel’s blocking of aid to the Palestinians in the war-torn Gaza Strip.
“France could have taken a symbolic decision. But this is not the choice we made because we have a particular responsibility” as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said, while saying Paris was still “determined” the make the move.
He said France would not recognize a Palestinian state alone, in a possible reference to the eagerness of Paris to see any French recognition matched by Gulf Arab allies — notably regional kingpin Saudi Arabia — recognizing Israel.
Several EU countries including Ireland, Spain and Sweden recognize a Palestinian state. But Germany, while backing a two-state solution, has said recognition now would send the “wrong signal.”
France is reportedly working closely on the issue with the United Kingdom, which also so far has not recognized a Palestinian state, at a time when French-British diplomatic ties are becoming increasingly tight after Brexit.
Macron on Thursday said that he expected the conference in New York would take steps “toward recognizing Palestine,” without being more specific.
He has said he hopes French recognition of a Palestinian state would encourage other governments to do the same and that countries who do not recognize Israel should do so.
Barrot meanwhile also stressed the “absolute necessity” to address the issue of the disarmament of Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants abducted 251 hostages, 55 of whom remain in Gaza, including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Hamas-run Gaza has killed 54,677 people, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry there, figures the United Nations deems reliable.
Relations between Israel and France have deteriorated over the last weeks, with Israel’s foreign ministry accusing Macron of undertaking a “crusade against the Jewish state” after he called on European countries to harden their stance if the humanitarian situation in Gaza did not improve.