Will the church keep to Pope Francis’ inclusive and compassionate ‘big tent’ vision?

Hours after the death of Pope Francis on Monday, the celebrated Mexican American writer Luis Alberto Urrea posted a remembrance of the pontiff that ended with a simple sentence: “There won’t be another like him.”

That sentiment, with its inbuilt speculation about which cardinal might succeed Francis as the next leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics, has filled news story after news story in the wake of his death.

For a Catholic like me — born into the faith who abandoned it for several decades, returned to it after my mother’s death, and then spent nearly a decade immersed in the doings of the church as an editor at a Catholic news organization — the “horse race” aspect of things, while certainly entertaining, threatens to obscure the legacy of this pope.

After all, Francis’ 12-year tenure — marked by his unwavering commitment to upholding the rights and dignity of migrants and refugees, his care for the earth, and his focus on serving and uplifting the poor — has drawn into sharp relief an existential challenge for the church he loved and led: What shape must our church on earth take?

Are we clerical or pastoral? Attritional or encompassing? Can we be authentic, and yet a church of humble encounter and unreserved accompaniment?

Francis became pope after his predecessor’s extraordinary decision to resign in 2013, after eight years. But since Benedict XVI remained pope emeritus until his death in 2022, he became a “lightning rod” for those feeling the pinch of Francis’ clerical reforms. Or for those who were feeling nostalgic, given that the two men were so very different from each other.

Benedict XVI (birth name: Joseph Ratzinger) was German and, as a young man, had been forced to join the Hitler Youth and was drafted to serve in the German military. After his ordination to the priesthood, he rose to head up the important Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where he earned the nickname “God’s rottweiler.” When he became pope, he chose to honor St. Benedict of Norsia, the co-patron of Europe and Patriarch of Western Monasticism, with his papal name, and donned the red slippers and richly embroidered cope traditionally worn by popes.

During his tenure, Benedict appointed nine U.S. cardinals — among them Cardinal Raymond Burke from St. Louis, who would become one of Pope Francis’ harshest critics. Praised by his supporters for making space again for the Tridentine Mass celebrated in Latin, as a pope, Benedict aimed to make the Roman Catholic Church “a smaller, purer church.”

Francis (birth name: Jorge Mario Bergoglio) was Argentine, studied to be a chemist, and became a priest during Argentina’s “dirty war.” As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he mixed humility (he traveled by public transportation) with conservatism (he was vocal in his opposition to same-sex marriage) in a way that seemed to utterly perplex members of both the left and right. When he became pope, he chose to honor St. Francis of Assisi, whose ministry was to the poor, with his papal name, and favored wearing a white cassock and sturdy walking shoes.

Early in his papacy, he earned the nickname of “the people’s pope” for his delight in stepping out of a car or breaking with papal convention to interact directly with ordinary people. As pope, Francis aimed for “big-tent Catholicism.”

This latter has been the genesis of some of the strongest intra-Catholic criticism of him, especially with regard to his efforts at synodality — a process of dialogue and shared decision-making with the laity in full participation with bishops, priests, deacons, and members of religious orders.

So, wither will the church go now: revert to smaller and purer, or expand the big tent?

Popular wisdom holds that each new pope is a reaction to the one who preceded him — but doesn’t prognosticate whether that reaction will be to build upon the predecessor’s legacy, or to walk it back.

If we look at that in the context of the church’s “culture wars,” the build-upon choice might bring us a next pope like Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, of the Philippines, who is considered progressive, a strong supporter of Francis’ environmental encyclical, and reportedly was part of Francis’ inner circle.

Or Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, of Marseille, France, who was seemingly Pope Francis’ favorite to succeed him.

Or Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, who, while rejecting Francis’ blessing of same-sex couples, sees “no difficulty” with ordaining women to the diaconate, and has spoken out about climate change as a lived reality for Africans.

For the walk-back option, a significant number of those being touted as papabile (that is, “popeable” contenders) have seriously conservative credentials. I’ve already seen some news organizations positing that Burke — one of the authors of a dubia, or formal doubts, issued by five cardinals on questions of doctrine in advance of Francis’ Synod on Synodality — is a possibility.

Or perhaps Cardinal Robert Sarah, another signatory of the dubia, who was born in Guinea and is the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship. Sarah has called out a range of practices he sees as harmful, everything from Francis’ blessing of same-sex couples to parishioners holding the Communion host/wafer in their hands, rather than having it placed in their mouth.

Or Cardinal Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don, of Colombo, Sri Lanka, who is seen as more attuned to Benedict’s approach than Francis’, but who did not have the adversarial relationship with the pope that Burke did.

(Read more about the papabili here.)

If we were to prioritize the demographics of global Catholicism instead of its culture wars, it would make sense for the next pope to come from the Global South.

According to a Pew Research Center report from this month, Latin America and the Caribbean are where 41% of the world’s Catholics live, and the region is home to the two largest Catholic populations in the world (Brazil, with 182 million Catholics, and Mexico, with 98 million). But only 18% of the College of Cardinals are from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Catholicism has experienced great growth in sub-Saharan Africa — especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has 55 million Catholics — where some 19% of the world’s Catholics live, but they are represented by only 12% of the College of Cardinals.

The Asian-Pacific region — where the Philippines alone has 93 million Catholics — is home to 11% of the world’s Catholics and 18% of the cardinals. The North African-Middle East region has 1% of the world’s Catholics and 3% of the cardinals.

But many of the sharpest intra-Catholic criticisms and challenges to the culture of encounter of Francis’ papacy came from cardinals from the Global North — regions that are overrepresented in the College of Cardinals.

To wit: Anglophone North America (7% of the world’s Catholics and 10% of the cardinals) and Europe (21% of the world’s Catholics and 40% of the cardinals). So if you are interested in this as a “horse race,” someone from these regions might be a good bet.

But no matter the individual elected, or what region of the world they represent, the next pope will have to grapple with Pope Francis’ enduring popularity with everyday Catholics (something Benedict also had to contend with after succeeding the wildly popular John Paul II).

And that is something that would surely elicit a gentle but joyful chuckle from the people’s pope — who was fond of a joke well-told, heartily disliked clericalism, and wholeheartedly loved us ordinary Catholics.

So much so, in fact, that one of his parting wishes might not be that much different from any of his fellow Jesuits. Asked how he would like to be remembered, the pope once told an interviewer from a Spanish newspaper: “‘He was a good guy, he did what he could, he was not so bad.’ I would be happy with that.”