The pope has eleven distinct jobs, and the cardinals may not be focused on the jobs that get the most press.
The pope has eleven distinct jobs, and the cardinals may not be focused on the jobs that get the most press.
W ith the papal conclave convening on Wednesday, there’s a lot of buzz about who might be the next pope and what it means for the Catholic Church. The difficulty that arises is reminiscent of the old proverb about blind men groping different parts of an elephant. There are a great many different jobs that are included in being the pope, and commentary — whether by religion-impaired mass media or by Catholics deep in some particular faction or community — tends to oversimplify how much goes into picking a new pope.
There are two sayings worth remembering. One is that he who enters a conclave as pope leaves as cardinal — in other words, the publicly speculated favorites often don’t win the vote. A cynic would say that this reflects the human political dynamic; the faithful would note that the guidance of the Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways. The other saying is that a fat pope is followed by a skinny pope — in other words, the cardinals tend to react by choosing a contrast to the last pope. In that regard, because a pope’s job is so multifaceted, there is a pronounced historical tendency for the College of Cardinals to just pick a pope who is strongest where the previous pope was weakest, at the risk of choosing a successor to St. Peter who is weak in different areas — and so the cycle of reactions continues, just as it does for presidents and prime ministers.
Consider eleven different major jobs given to the Bishop of Rome:
First, the pope is a spiritual leader. The foremost job of any clergyman, from the pope to the humblest friar, is to lead souls to God. All else is merely supportive of that role. Different popes have approached this task in different ways as writers, homilists, and public models of prayer — some more intellectual, some more devotional, some more charismatic, some more mystical, some more ascetic — but the conclave cannot just ignore the central job.
Second, the pope is a dogmatist. Doctrine and dogma play a huge role in the Catholic Church and make it especially distinctive from Protestant denominations that stress the unmediated relationship between the believer and divine revelation and Scripture. Church teachings are extensive and detailed, governing matters spiritual, moral, and liturgical. They have been developed over 2,000 years. They are propounded by the magisterium of the church — the collective authority of the bishops, living and dead. They have developed over time in detail and occasionally in directions not originally foreseen, but their authority depends upon continuity. While the pope plays a unique role in the magisterium, that role is expected to operate at the margins rather than in the form of personal innovations. Indeed, popes traditionally swore an oath not to retreat or alter one inch from the teachings of the church fathers they inherited. Even so, most popes of any duration influence how the Church’s dogmas and doctrines are understood in the pulpit and in the pews.
Third, the pope is a moral leader. Individual and social morals are secondary to the spirit — from the Ten Commandments to the boiled-down Great Commandment offered in the Gospel, loving the Lord is always put first in order before loving one’s neighbor. Moral sins are bad because they lead us away from God. But they are of great importance because, people being people, the daily affairs of the world are always more on the minds of most people (even most clergy) than are the affairs of the spirit. As with spiritual leadership and dogmatics, the pope leads not only by teaching but by both emphasis and example.
Fourth, the pope is a pastor. The church’s billion or so members are a big flock, often unruly, troubled, and divided within as well as tempted and persecuted from without. Popes instruct the parishes on how to handle pastoral matters, and they guide the church in its charitable works. A good pastor must balance the virtues of empathy and paternal authority. Pope Francis, for example, excelled at the former — his care for the needy, the suffering, and the spiritually and morally damaged was his strongest suit — but stirred up a lot of division and controversy in his choices of where to put his foot down (often against Catholics he saw as too faithful). From divorced Catholics to Latin Mass devotees, there are more than a few constituencies of pressing pastoral concern within the church.
Fifth, the pope is an evangelist. It is his job not only to tend to his own flock, but to spread the Good Word and bring more souls into the church. An appealing public face for the faith is part of that.
Sixth, the pope is a personnel manager. He decides whom to promote, overseeing the processes of deciding whom to discipline and excommunicate. He sits atop and directs the processes for how parishes are managed and how priests and religious are recruited, formed, and guided. That runs the gamut from preventing or stanching scandals in the behavior of the clergy to deciding what new religious orders to recognize to deciding how priests should live and what tasks of theirs can be given over to deacons or lay people.
Seventh, the pope is a trustee. He is responsible for preserving the church’s historical memories, its treasures of building and art, and its sacred places for the next generation. He directs the process of canonizing saints.
Eighth, the pope is a CEO. He manages the church’s finances and operations, which have been particularly troublesome in recent decades. The CEO part of the job isn’t why anybody becomes a priest, but it may be more on the minds of the cardinals this week than a lot of other items on this list.
Ninth, the pope is a head of state. Vatican City is much reduced from the old Papal States that governed the entire center of the Italian peninsula for centuries before Italian reunification in 1860 and secular control of Rome itself in 1870, but he still runs a spot of earth as absolute monarch, deciding the laws and their enforcement as well as managing the vast flow of tourist traffic through the Vatican.
Tenth, the pope is a diplomat. He has both moral and practical relationships with many governments, from war-torn Ukraine with its large Catholic minority to the West Bank’s embattled Christians in Bethlehem to Myanmar to American immigration policy. Some popes are more eager than others to wade into disputes among non-Christians, such as the war in Gaza. Diplomacy of both a public and private nature consumed much of the papacies of Pius XII during the Second World War and the Holocaust and Saint John Paul II during the Cold War. The question of how much the church should bow to the Chinese Communist regime will likely remain the most pressing diplomatic concern for the next pope.
Eleventh, the pope is an ecumenist. He manages not only the church’s relations with national governments, but also with other Christian denominations and other faiths. Particularly important is the long-sought but elusive goal of greater reunion among the many schisms within the church dating back centuries.
The American press will doubtless focus heavily on whether the next pope is seen as socially conservative or progressive on a handful of issues of sex, the environment, and immigration. The American Catholic press is apt to focus on what the next pope means for tolerance of traditionalist and progressive Catholic forces. But the eyes of the cardinals may be far from those questions in choosing the next successor to St. Peter.