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Evelyn Macairan - The Philippine Star
May 7, 2025 | 12:00am
The coffin of Pope Francis already sealed.
Vatican Media
MANILA, Philippines — As he prepares for the task of electing a new pope, Kalookan’s Pablo Virgilio Cardinal David takes with him people’s suggestions on what they hope their next pope will be.
Over the weekend, David, who is also the current president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), posed this question on his personal Facebook account, “What do you expect of the next pope?”
He asked the public to give qualities they hope the next Holy Father would embody, given the current situation of the Catholic Church.
David also discouraged them from mentioning names, and instead focus on virtues and leadership qualities of the next pope.
Late Monday evening, he said he read the responses to his question and “I found my eyes welling up with tears just reading each one seriously. It took me about an hour to finish reading them.”
Some people replied they wanted a pope who is “humanly Christ,” someone who would continue the groundbreaking reforms of Pope Francis, who radiates the same humility and warmth; merciful and compassionate and lives a simple life.
While others wanted the next leader of the 1.4 billion Catholics to be someone who listens to the marginalized; makes difficult decisions for the church to move forward; a bridge builder; an evangelizer and someone who does not tolerate corruption.
“We will be checking in at Santa Martha starting … May 6, and surrendering all our communications gadgets to fully dispose ourselves spiritually for the task of identifying the new pope who will lead the universal Church,” David said.
He also mentioned that he shared the link to the comments with some of his fellow electors, and one of them even suggested that this practice could be adopted in the next conclave.
The elector sent David this text message: “Maybe instead of just us talking at the pre-Conclave sessions, for the next Conclave, we can propose that the Vatican Dicastery for Social Communications conduct a similar inquiry and then have the responses synthesized through AI into common points raised by people sectorally – young people, professionals, laborers, women, consecrated persons, etc. It’s a good way of getting a feel of the sensus fidelium (sense of the faithful).”
The conclave begins with a mass today, May 7.
“How long before the white smoke comes out? That will be up to the Lord,” the Kalookan prelate added.
There are 133 cardinal-electors who would be casting their votes for the next pope, replacing Pope Francis who died on April 21.
When conclave starts, all of the cardinals will take an oath of secrecy before beginning to vote daily, two times in the morning and two times in the evening, and will continue voting until two-thirds of the cardinals have agreed on a pope.
