Matt Hanka is a Professor of Political Science of the University of Southern Indiana. He’s interested in the political process to elect the Pope. Because he studies and teaches organizational behavior, he’s interested in who will helm the organization that leads 1.4 billion Catholics. He spoke with WNIN’s Tim Jagielo about this. Below is a long transcription of the interview; the short broadcast audio is attached.
Tim Jagielo
Outside of leading the Catholic Church, what is the role of the Pope?
Matt Hanka
The Pope has many hats that he wears. In addition to being the head of 1.4 billion Catholics, the Vatican City where the church resides is its own sovereign state. So he's a head of state as well, and he has the Holy See of diplomatic relations with countries around the world. So he's not only viewed as leading the church, but also the church, and it's in its efforts to do diplomacy and International Affairs around the world.
So that's very big. It's a very big responsibility, and some of that has had to do with its relatively recent history. There was the Papal State. So there actually was a territory for which the church ruled over until it became Vatican City, which is as small as you could fit the Vatican inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. So he has that role in addition to a lot of other titles of being the the chief Shepherd, the bishop of Rome. But yeah, that's his Head of State responsibility is as important as leading the faithful.
TJ
How significant is the Pope, politically outside of the Vatican?
MH
Oh, politically extremely important, because whatever example he sets … all the other nation states can look to how he's addressing a particular issue. So Francis tended to lean on the issues that would affect the poor, and for those kinds of issues, it tends to be those that are on the left of the political spectrum, liberals who want to provide poor programs and things for the poor.
So his example, many people may see this as a way to govern. There's a lot of folks that work within the Curia … they're kind of on the left side of the political spectrum, even within church politics, they would know that that's what the church ought to be doing, internally and externally, is serving the poor, addressing root causes of poverty, injustice, hunger, disease, war, famine.
TJ
Do you have any examples of his significance politically on the world stage that you've seen recently?
MH
So his posture, this particular Pope who just recently passed, Francis — this approach would be very liberal in terms of addressing social issues. That is in contrast to a lot of populist movements that you've been seeing in Europe and around the world that maybe resist that over-intervention by the government, or resists a world where there's a diverse and open church.
So the Pope is seen as ‘The People's Pope.’ You're seeing populist movements that want to sort of be more inward, internal, insular, the ‘Make America Great Again’ … that's not a message of this pope. But there are some cardinals who lead the church that would almost would mirror some of that. So when watching the Conclave, it'll be interesting to see that they want to have a pope that's more along the lines of what Francis is, or have a more conservative church, a more inward looking church, sort of fewer but more faithful and more more to the traditional doctrines of the church, and there are those factions that do exist among not only the Roman Curie of the Vatican bureaucracy, but the College of Cardinals as well.
TJ
Is there anything significant about his passing at this point in this political climate?
MH
I think it is extremely important because of the things that many folks aligned with Francis want to do, in terms of reforming the church, in terms of solving a lot of these important social issues.
Many have said that his death hasn't come at a worse time, because all these forces at play could take over. These populist movements could take over, and in some ways, maybe undo the 12 years of the work Francis did over his pontificate.
So some may observe this as ‘this is a bad time,’ because then this is a vacuum for which we can steer the church away. So Francis was not without his critics, and that he had a lot of conservatives who thought he was going a little too far in a number of these issues that have the openness and, you know, ‘who am I to judge somebody’ who, for instance, might be identifies LGBTQ and some of those things where the church would never have come close to taking a stance like that.
He couldn't completely upend certain fundamental doctrinal positions. But I think the positions he took were enough to make conservatives nervous, and if we're seeing these conservative populist movements, to certainly return to Trumpism his first 100 days and all this, and you've seen some of this, that potentially could be a void that could be filled by the church hierarchy, but it just depends on what the double deliberations at the Conclave go.
TJ
During the papal Conclave, is there any opportunity for external pressure to influence that decision, whether they kind of go in a more traditional conservative direction, or they continue his outward looking work there?
MH
It very well could be. It depends on where those that are the College of Cardinals, they have to be at least at 80 years of age or younger, and some of them come from different places. They either serve the Roman Curia, the other Vatican bureaucracy, or they are serving as an archbishop, or metropolitan Archbishop of a very large city around the world.
So it's possible, depending on the politics of that, (location)you could see some influence. So you're seeing an authoritarian regime in Hungary and Cardinal Erdö of the Archbishop of Budapest, Hungary is … sort of someone who could potentially be seen as someone who might be elected Pope. That's possible. Hungary is influencing the position there. It's hard to say from the bishops, the Cardinals, the 10 that are a part of the College of Cardinals.
I'm not sure if we can answer that the Trump administration is influencing, but they know, and obviously they're just in the first 100 days, there have been some positions Trump took on the US Catholic Conference of Bishops that (they said) ‘absolutely not, we're not going to support this when it comes to immigration.’
So it can influence, because … there's a sort of synergy, in the sense that the faithful in particular archdiocese or diocese, they're also voters. So the people who lead the church are very political, and that's why approaching this and understanding it from a political perspective is extremely important and healthy that they say, ‘yes, the Holy Spirit guides them to a decision.’ But every one of these Cardinals got to their position because of their political skill and acumen, their administrative skill, their leadership, things that they can do to navigate and understand. How do we lead this one point, this, this organization at 1.4 billion Catholics.
TJ
Why should somebody who is not a Catholic, maybe even not religious at all — why should they care about who the next pope is going to be?
MH
Even if you're not a part of the Faithful, it is a fascinating organization that has withstood 2,000 years of history, so all the way back to the Roman Empire. So empires and kingdoms and nation states have come and gone, and the church is still here. And so I think that's important, from a faith perspective, of just how the church has been able to run itself and conduct itself.
And it certainly has had plenty of problems and corruption and saints and sinners … But it's endured all this time. And so here we are. And the church sometimes is slow to adapt to, but, but in many ways, it follows along with, with the world as they as they see it. And so something for the non Catholics, it's just important to see that, hey, there's, there's, there's a leader out there leading the faithful, and it's just in and trying to certainly do his part, to not only serve God, but to but to certainly serve humanity in the world. So he's another public servant, like, like, like all the others, except he leads 1.4 billion religious favoring religious Catholics.
TJ
Is there anything else you'd like to add about why it's important to talk about who the next pope is going to be now?
MH
Right now, obviously there's nobody leading the church. Now they call this the interregnum period, so lot of people are just going to be on pins and needles, just to sort of an intact in in anticipation and hope that the new leader of the church will will be a good servant of God and and address all the important social and political issues and and either there's gonna be a lot of anticipation.
Once the Conclave begins (you’ll see the faithful) waiting to see (the) white smoke so they'll know that a pope has been elected. … This is the way you keep the church going. And the church has had a lot of success in the last century or so of just maintaining the continuity through successful conclaves where there hasn't been too many problems. And they aren't immediate … they could take several days, but they've reformed that process much better than they used to, and even much better than even before that. So a lot of people are going to wait and see; it's probably going to be one of the world's biggest events in the next couple weeks.
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