A conclave doesn’t deal in ‘candidates’, cardinal explains
Joseph San Mateo/Crux• April 24, 2025
Filipino Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David has downplayed talk about “popular candidates” in the upcoming conclave that will occur following the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday.
David, who left Manila for Rome on the morning of 24 April to attend Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday and then to participate in the subsequent conclave, said a papal election is unlike the political processes seen in different parts of the globe.
“There are no candidates in a conclave,” David, the bishop of Kalookan, told reporters on Tuesday after a Mass celebrated for the repose of Pope Francis’s soul at Kalookan Cathedral.
David dispelled the notion that the conclave is like a political election – a relevant comparison given the Philippines is holding its midterm elections on May 12. “No one will give dole-outs. No one will put up tarpaulins. No one will mount a campaign,” the cardinal said.
“A conclave is a retreat. The cardinals will pray, and it is in the spirit of prayer that we will ask not whom we want to elect, but whom the Lord wants to succeed Pope Francis.
“That’s why we have a big moral and spiritual obligation to enter into the conclave, not in the spirit of politics but in the spirit of prayer for the continuity of the mission of the Church,” David said.
David, 66, is the 10th cardinal from the Philippines, and is participating in a conclave for the first time. He was part of the last batch of cardinals created by Pope Francis on 7 December 2024.
David, known for his opposition to former president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, is also the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
He has been cheered by supporters as a possible replacement for Francis. His college schoolmate when he attended a Jesuit university – Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle – is also a popular papabile from the Philippines.
Containing 86 million Catholics, the Philippines is the biggest Catholic-majority country in Asia and the third biggest in the world. This makes the papal election a highly-charged topic in the country both online and offline, prompting clergymen such as David to educate their flock about the nature of a conclave.
In his interview with journalists on 22 April, David said that since the conclave is a “retreat”, part of the cardinals’ duty is to discern through getting to know their fellow cardinals better.
One way by which they get acquainted with each other, according to David, is by writing each other personal letters.
He said another way is by doing research, noting that there is a website compiling the biographical data and other basic information about the different cardinals. “I am there. I was surprised, I didn’t even know who did my write-up,” he said.
When asked about the qualities of the next pope, David said he should be “somebody who will sustain the vision of Pope Francis of synodality”.
Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David attends a Mass with new Cardinals at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, 8 December 2024. (Photo by ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP via Getty Images.)
Referring to Francis’s synodal vision, David added: “That’s his biggest contribution – to propel the Church in mission. That the Church should not be too ‘churchy’ and inward-looking. That it should open its doors and look outside, at society. Because we have a mission: We are the salt of the earth, we are the light of the world.”
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When it comes to the Church and “our impact on society”, he cautioned: “So what if we are building big parishes, but we don’t make a difference in society?”
When asked about the possibility that the Catholic Church will gain an Asian pope, David said, “Well, in our time, anything can be made possible by the Holy Spirit.”
“It’s true: Before, the Global North was the centre. Now, the majority of the Catholics are in the Global South,” the cardinal said.
He noted that the bishops of the Global South have even banded together to form the Conferences of the Global South, composed of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences and their Latin American and African counterparts.
They often hold Zoom meetings, he said, as “a way to strengthen the bonding of the Global South”.
Despite this shift in the global landscape of the Catholic Church, the Filipino bishops have continued urging Filipino Catholics not to treat the forthcoming conclave like a horse race.
A spokesperson for the Filipino bishops’ conference appealed to Filipinos not to campaign online for one of their own: Tagle, pro-prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelisation and former archbishop of Manila, and who is widely viewed as a strong contender.
“We leave it to the cardinal electors to decide who will succeed Pope Francis,” Father Jerome Secillano, executive secretary of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Public Affairs, said on Radio Veritas.
“It’s not prudent for the public to promote Cardinal Tagle as the next pope, as this could create the impression that the conclave might be swayed by external influences, if Cardinal Tagle [were to be] elected as the next pontiff.”
Secillano, who is also the spokesperson of the Archdiocese of Manila, added: “The independence of the electors must be respected, and the least we can do is pray for Cardinal Tagle and the other cardinal electors.”
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Photo: People react as white smoke rises from the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel indicating that the College of Cardinals have elected a new pope, Vatican, Vatican City, 13 March 2013. Pope Francis had been chosen as the 266th Pontiff, and as Benedict XVI’s successor, selected by the College of Cardinals in conclave in the Sistine Chapel. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images.)