And the Catholic Church is getting more liberal- while same sex marriages are not performed, Francis said that blessing same sex couples is a Good Idea. Fiducia Supplicans
Speculationover some of the more prominent cardinals in line for the pontiff include Cardinals Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state; Peter Turkson, of Ghana, who served as president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; and Luis Tagle, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples since December 2019 and former archbishop of Manila. Some other possible considerations include Cardinals Matteo Zuppi, Gerhard Müller, Angelo Scola, Angelo Bagnasco, Raymond Burke, Robert Sarah, and Malcolm Ranjith.
OTOH I’d love to see an African Pope, from a continent that’s criminally marginalized in all fields, but OTOH I’m afraid most African cardinals are rather conservative, especially in the acceptance of LGBTQ rights. But that’s just an impression I got from reporting about African resistance to the rather liberal stance of the current Pope in this question, and maybe there are liberal African candidates I could agree on.
Pope St. Victor I - The 14th Pope - PopeHistory.com. In Church documents, his ethnicity is listed as Roman Berber. The popes who came before Victor used Greek when writing documents and hosting Mass. Victor made the transition to Latin, which other popes would also use. As he came from North Africa, some historians now believe that Victor was a black man .
Note that Jesus is often portrayed as a white dude even with blue eyes. But He wasn’t.
The only image that is close to being that old is one that could show a North African man.
But we really have no authentic art of the Saint from 199 AD. So- maybe.
Youtube video. In case you don’t want to watch it (it is less than 3 minutes).
Pietro Parolin, Vatican Sec’y of State
Luis Antonio Tagle
Peter Erdo
As for an African candidates:
Fridolin Ambongo
Robert Sarah
Yeah… the thinking there was that it’s okay to bless the couple but not their union. You can be a same-sex couple without having sex. Actual sex outside of Catholic marriage is still a sin. Ditto for divorcees who remarry outside the church.
I’m not sure that baptised Anglicans are ineligible to be elected pope as a matter of canon law. The Catholic Church recognises Anglican baptisms as valid - which is the reason why they don’t re-baptise formerly Anglican converts. Of course the cardinals would never elect him, but in terms of formal eligibility requirements I think he’d be covered.
The Europe versus Africa divide is even more pronounced in the Anglican communion, which is nowadays constantly on the brink of breakup owing to the conservative stance of the African churches on LGBTQ and ordination of women.
Look, Twitter, if you’re going to make stupid jokes nominate Miroslav Satan.
Anyway, I think it’ll be interesting to see what happens. I heard in some coverage that Francis had elevated quite a number to cardinal, so while in theory we’ll never actually know, it’ll be interesting to see if there’s a bloc inside the conclave for someone of that group or similar alignment.
Morris West’s 1963 novel The Shoes of the Fisherman is about the election of a Pope set against a Cold War backdrop, and of course Robert Harris’s 2016 novel Conclave, set in the present day, has been in the news because of its recent and acclaimed film adaptation. I’ve read and would recommend both books.