Preparing for the Post-Francis Era

Near a sunny and more crowded than usual St. Peter's Square – thanks to the jubilee year - a high prelate confides to Domenico Agassi: "Conservative cardinals and prelates are pushing for the conclave, by filtering the message of a pontificate at its end. For several months ... they have intensified their projects to accelerate the end of Bergoglio's papacy, hoping for his resignation.”

The fact that a “high-ranking” ecclesiastic was speaking to a journalist from La Stampa – the leading daily newspaper in Italy – is in itself a news story that reveals palace intrigue, not to say the open war of succession, that is being played out within the Leonine enclosure.

And perhaps it is being played outside too: “The torpedoes launched against Pope Francis come from the United States,” confides the prelate who wishes to remain anonymous but assures that the “cultural warriors” across the Atlantic have entered into a crusade against the Pope, accusing him of having “discredited the fight for life.” The accusations target the Archdiocese of New York, led by Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

He is considered one of the reference points of the MAGA movement embodied by Vice President J.D. Vance, who is hostile to the progressivism sometimes piloted directly from the Casa Santa Marta: "Last Sunday (February 23) Cardinal Dolan affirmed that the Pope was probably close to death," underlines the ecclesiastical source of La Stampa.

He notes that the Vicar General of New York, Joseph P. LaMorte, sent the priests of the diocese a Memorandum indicating how to adorn the churches in the event of a vacancy of the Apostolic See: "As Jorge Mario Bergoglio approaches the end of his earthly journey, a very ancient tradition encourages us to recite for the Pope a Pater, an Ave, and a Gloria Patri," explains the official letter.

He adds that "at the announcement of the Pope's death, the church bells should ring 88 times, the number of years lived by the pontiff." And he proposed "setting up a commemorative space in the church that could include the lit Paschal candle, a photo of the Pope, a kneeler, candles to light during prayer and a book in which the faithful can write prayer intentions."

Domenico Agassi notes that in the first rank of the prelates present during the rosaries recited in St. Peter's Square for the health of the Pope were cardinals who, in recent years, have openly opposed the "Bergoglio line": Raymond Leo Burke, Gerhard Müller, and Robert Sarah. Is it a sign of the end of a reign awaited by the "Francis opponents," or proof of the filial piety of cardinals residing in Rome? The reader will choose, but the journalist from La Stampa, in favor of the current pontificate, appears to have made up his mind.

It must be admitted that the sycophants of Francis are suffering from feverishness. The illness of the current Roman Pontiff, whatever the outcome, raises as perhaps never before the question of the posterity of the pontificate of Francis. The progressives fear seeing the legacy of the one who succeeded Pope Benedict XVI on the throne of St. Peter squandered.

Francis's legacy leaves a divided Sacred College. The electors of the future pope, numbering 137 at this time, hardly know each other and do not form a homogeneous group. You do not need to be a good Vaticanist to understand that everyone is currently working behind the scenes to influence the future porporati, even if it means mobilizing media resources here and there.

There is no doubt that Pope Francis knows what is going on outside the walls of the Gemelli polyclinic. During a discussion with Jesuits in Bratislava on September 12, 2021, shortly after his colon operation, the Pope declared: “I know the intrigues. I am still alive. Although some wanted me to die. I know that there were even meetings between prelates, who thought that the Pope was in a more serious condition than what was said. Patience! Thank God, I am fine.”