Cardinal Napier: ‘We need someone to build on the Francis foundation’

The South African cardinal talks conclaves, Cardinal Becciu, and Vatican financial reform

South African Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier of South Africa has led an interesting life.

Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier. Image credit: Susanna Pinto/Pillar media

Born in Swartberg, South Africa in 1941.

Ordained a priest in 1970, he became a bishop in 1980 and in 1992 he was named the Archbishop of Durban and was made a cardinal in 2001, participating in the conclaves of 2005 and 2013.

After arriving in Rome, he spoke to The Pillar about the legacy of Pope Francis, and what it is like to elect a pope.

Along the way, he also talked about cultural diversity and the role of women in the Church, Vatican financial reform, and how the cardinals should approach the conclave.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is the mood among the cardinals right now, following the death of Pope Francis?

Saturday morning was very special. Going and being able to stand in front of the coffin in St. Peter's was the first of, I think, many gestures of farewell to him, at that spiritual, emotional level you could say.

Because I really found Pope Francis an inspiration in so many ways. Things that he did, you didn't expect the results that would come out of them and yet, you'd see it afterward that this man had some insight — that he saw things, and reacted to it, and only later on do you realize why he did it and what the effect has been.

I think he was a very, very deeply spiritual person, but also a deep thinker as well. In many ways he was like John Paul. John Paul II was also a very, very deep thinker, but in Francis, you'd think because of all the action maybe, you didn't think of him as that way immediately, but it certainly came out later on.

It sounds like it must have been quite emotional for you.

It was. I really was wishing that he would continue, but knowing that at 88 you're not young. Unless you're going to have a real miracle at 88, you're not going to come out of a serious illness that he had.

He wasn't going to sit around for two months, as the doctor said, he must convalesce for two months. At that age, two months is like two years, man. That's a long, long time to try and recover.

But it was so lovely to see how he spent that last week out of hospital. And then what does he do? He goes to the prison and then comes out on Easter Sunday morning. And it was only when I heard next day that he had passed on, I said, “That was him saying goodbye to the rest of us.”

Have you been able to attend the general congregations?

This morning was my first one.

And what is the mood amongst the cardinals? How would you describe it?

The first thing that struck me was, when I got to the gates of the Holy Office there and the journalists came around, they'd asked me general questions first and then the Becciu question came up.

“What about Cardinal Becciu? Is he going to go up? What is going to do?” And I said, “Well, I don't know anything about that. I’ll probably find out when I get inside.” And yeah, I think that certainly set a bit of... I think it distracted us from what I think the congregation would really like to be doing, and that's looking at what way do we want to indicate for whoever's going to be chosen as pope.

Going on the two examples of the previous two conclaves and the congregations before those conclaves, it was quite clear that each area of the world was saying, “These are the kind of issues we've got in our area. This is what we'd like to see the pope doing when he's elected.”

So I think [the Becciu question] was a bit of a side issue. It took us a little bit off to the side, but I think it's been resolved now and we'll be able to carry on with the other issues.

So is he going to be able to vote?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure what he's going to do himself. It was discussed, yeah. And apparently it was brought up in the other two congregations yesterday and the day before then. People were expressing their opinions. Most of us didn't have any idea about what was going on and so we just kept our mouth closed.

I think it's up to him really to decide what he's going to do. I think that's what he's probably going to end up with. I think the fairest way to do it — let him make the decision and do what he's going to do.

He spoke out on what the sequence of events was, and then the others who came in on other sides and it was left like that there, and so we moved on to other issues, which I think are the more important ones, because focusing on one person I think is actually making things very difficult.

In the end he's got to make the decision himself.

Editor’s Note: Shortly after this interview took place, Cardinal Becciu announced publicly that he had renounced his claim to participate in the forthcoming conclave.

I think there are much more serious issues. For instance, how do these congregations, how do we cardinals plot out, as we did I think for Pope Francis before he was elected, the areas that really needed attention?

When he got to the position of being elected, [Pope Francis] had a fairly good idea of the direction in which the congregations have been taking the Church and saying, “The pope must do something about renewing the Church, and these are the areas where the renewal must take place.”

And some of the indications were also there as to how he was going to do it.

For instance, the Council of Nine [C9 Council of Cardinal Advisors to the pope], they are people who were a support group for the pope. He can't do it on his own. And if he's got that, it is different for him when he's going into the curia, with the different officials that are already in position, and you don't always know where they're going to go.

And if he's got to wait until he's changing them before he makes a decision, it would've taken forever.

So I think the inspiration of those last group of congregations was to see that the pope needs people to support him and Francis took it straight away, he implemented it.

And the second thing that he implemented very quickly was, I think, that the pope should consult the leadership of the Church as soon as possible after his election. And he called a special synod — 2014 was an extraordinary synod — which meant that it was the presidents of the conferences, not elected representatives of the bishops' conferences, the presidents.

He chose the theme of the family, marriage and the family, and the challenges of evangelization. I think that was really sending the message out. Any society, whether it's civil society or the Church society, it has to be based on the family.

Were there other early reforms that struck you under Pope Francis?

Well, of course, at the same time as that, there were all the other reforms, the actual mechanics of it were quite clear. The reform of the finances of the Vatican. I was one of those on the Council for the Economy.

There were eight cardinals and seven laymen. I think they were looking for women, but they didn't get any women on that occasion but now they have several.

Anyway, the idea there was to get people in who have the business sense of how you run a good financial operation, and what are the strengths and the weaknesses that you need to strengthen and eliminate from the Vatican structures.

When we started off, they didn't even know how many properties were owned by the Vatican. Everything was in a silo. Each department was running independently of any others. There was no real coordination.

I think that was one of the great victories that Francis actually scored, getting us to know, get that sense of transparency. Now you can ask any of the departments, what are your accounts like? And you'll get a response. I don't think you'd have got that before he took over. And then there has come a sense of transparency and accountability: “This is what we're using, this is how we're using it,” and so on.

I think those are two major things that happened in Pope Francis' time: Having marriage and the family as the basis for any renewal in the Church, and then this renewing of the structures of the Church, like the financial administration.

So do you think, especially in light of events like the London property scandal, that led to the trial and conviction of Cardinal Becciu, do you think that continued reforms there need to be a priority for the next pope?

As far as the financial structures themselves, that should be OK — those things are in place. I understand that those are in place now. The Vatican can actually put out financial reports and people should be able to believe them, because they've got the structures in place to make sure that every process is done according to the best practices in financial management.

So now the main thing now, I think, is how do we take it forward, how do we use the structures? That's the other side of the thing.

But I think in many ways it's a side issue. It's an important one, but it's a side issue. The very main one I would say is continuing the process of renewal of the Church using marriage and the family as the foundations.

When you look at the pictures of the last synod [on synodality], it was so different from the synods before, where we were like we were this morning in the congregation, all of us looking down on a podium where the people who are controlling the meeting are sitting, and the only participation you have is if you've got something prepared and you speak, otherwise you're just listening.

Now what does Pope Francis do? He says: “We're a synodal church, so we are going to sit around. That's how you talk to people. You sit around, you don't sit all facing in the same direction like in a cinema.”

And so when you looked at the images of the last synod, there were 20 or 30 tables of 20 people at a time, that was a very different type of dynamic on the go, I think.

More interactive?

Much more interactive. And then the number of laypeople was much increased compared with the very first synods, when there were just a few representatives from a few organizations.

I remember the first synods I came to here, when John Paul was the Holy Father, and there were some very, very vocal young laypeople in those synods, but they're almost all from Opus Dei or some other organization that was quite tight-knit in its structures. And they all met beforehand to plan their process, how to make their interventions, how they're going to do it, who's going to do this from which part of the world and so on.

Whereas I think with this last one with Pope Francis, people were from everywhere and you didn't have to be briefed. You just went into your group and you did what you had to do.

Now, I'm talking from second-hand information, because I wasn't there myself. But just looking at and listening to the two bishops from Southern Africa who were there representing us, the way they talked about it was quite clear that it's a completely different dynamic.

During the synod on young people [in 2015], you spoke about hesitancy on the part of some curial officials when it came to listening to the African Church leaders’ voices.

Do you think that's changed or is that still a concern for you?

From the two bishops and the reports and the fact that one of our media persons from the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference was given quite an important role in the media operation, I think that we were adequately covered as far as those concerns that there might be under-representation of Africa, that the African voice is not being heard.

I think the present structure needs to be consolidated and move forward better. In other words, sitting around 20 people, whatever it was, around the table, rather than all sitting in a hall looking at people on the stage, so to speak.

Obviously, you are a senior leader among the African bishops and I'm sure your brother bishops rely on your advice and your guidance.

So how are you discussing the needs of the Church with them during this period ahead of the conclave?

For a conclave it is not quite as easy to organize people as we did with the African bishops and so on during a synod — then I think we met practically every day, every weekday, we had meetings, I think down at Radio Vatican place. We all went down there, we'd gather, not simply to consolidate a particular African position, but simply to get to know each other, number one. And then to hear from each other.

I'm in South Africa. Our problems there have been dominated by apartheid for so many years. What are your problems up in Sudan, for instance? Sudan's got very different problems from South Africa, but we're all representing Africa here, and so what are the points that we support you? Where can you support us?

You spoke about getting to know each other. How big an issue is that right now during these general congregations?

Well, just going on what I saw this morning, a lot of the time was spent on guys recognizing each other, and going and greeting and saying hello, and so on. I think that's the first step.

I imagine that after that, some guys would be saying: “Well, look, we're all from this area. Why don't we get together and talk about what's going to happen?" That's what I remember happening in the previous congregations.

One occasion I remember one of the cardinals from Britain, I think it was Murphy-O'Connor, inviting guys to the English College. We went to this English college and discussed how it was a long time since we've had a conclave because John Paul had been there for so long. So guys, we said, who do we know? Who do we not know? What are we going to look for in the next pope, for instance?

But that was just kind of an exploratory thing, just to say who are you looking at and so on. Then the next meeting we had was at the Irish College, that was even more interesting because whoever was organizing it said, “Come, guys, just tell us about your country, your area, what are the issues? What if we are going to choose somebody who's going to deal with those issues, what must he be aware of, and so on?”

I found those very, very enlightening — I may put it that way. Because it wasn't like somebody was canvassing support for a particular candidate. It was just to say: “Tell us what your thing is about.” And I think we were, as first-time voters, a bit nervous about the fact that we are not supposed to canvass, you're not supposed to be doing any politicking and all that.

But that was quickly offset by the focus on just asking everyone what the main concerns in your area are about.

Having turned 80 years old already, you won’t be voting in the conclave this time, but what would you like to see in the next pope?

What are the issues and the qualities? What are the talents that you would be looking out for if you were voting?

I think the first thing I would ask them to be cognizant of is that to a large extent, Pope Francis throughout his pontificate was putting in place the reforms that had been requested by the previous meetings of the cardinals preparing for the conclave.

The renewal of the Church was the broad basis on which to build that. But if you look at all the different things — the Council for the Economy, the Secretariat for the Economy, the way in which he's reorganized the dicasteries — some of these changes were quite subtle.

I remember, for instance, when Cardinal Peter Turkson was asked to take over a different department from what was formerly just the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and he was asked to move to one that had to do with the economy.

We all thought: “Hey, this guy's being sidelined.” Until we attended a meeting and realized then that this is a key portfolio: How does the Church influence the way the economy is going and what are the good principles?

Very often what appears on the outside as a man's been demoted or sidelined, pushed aside because he's not doing a good job, in fact is being given a very crucial position. I expect that in a number of other areas, one would find the same thing.

Pope Francis has then also gone into this very delicate operation of replacing what were cardinal positions with lay people, with religious, and I think that's a very significant thing.

You don't need to be a priest or a cardinal or a bishop in order to keep the economics going. You need somebody who's got expertise in economics. And that could be anybody. It could be a lay person. So I think that's one of the things where I would hope that the next pope is going to see a foundation has been laid, now it's for him to work out what to put on that foundation.

You expect more lay leaders in senior positions?

I think if the next pope has been listening to Pope Francis and been following the logic that he's been applying, he will say: “Well, if this is the dicastery for religious [congregations] and you've got a cardinal there who's not a religious, does he even understand what religious life is about? So why not put forward somebody who is a religious and has had a wide experience of how to organize a religious community and etc. etc.”

I would say that the pope would be well advised to follow up on what Pope Francis has been laying as foundations.

You mentioned the need for the cardinals to have listened to Pope Francis and they are still processing his pontificate. His leadership did come under some criticism too, of course, some of it quite outspoken.

Is there any sense in the congregation of a desire for change in a new pope?

I don't think there've been any Pauline conversions [among critics]. Nobody has been on the road to Damascus and struck off their horse or whatever, No, I don't think so.

But I think tomorrow there will be robust discussions to be sure. This morning was just very, very, very difficult to assess, because the topics were still very diverse and the Becciu issue was quite a substantial one. I heard comments as we were leaving and something like: “Thank God that's out of the way, now we can get onto what we need to actually advise the pope on.”

And I think from tomorrow onward you probably will see clearer lines being drawn.

For me, it is about how we advise the next pope on building on the foundations that have been placed there by Pope Francis in his administration.

Do you think Fiducia supplicans will be a major talking point and issue?

See, I think with the strong position taken by the president [Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo] of SECAM — this symposium for African bishops, Madagascar and Africa — on Fiducia supplicans, he represented the majority of the Africans on that one.

His main concern was that we, as African countries, are in general under a lot of pressure from European donors, American donors and what have you, to accept the accepted thinking with regard to homosexuality and all that kind of stuff.

His main concern that he was expressing on behalf of the African bishops, or the African Church really, was that if this document is used, then we find ourselves being outflanked from within our own ranks. That somehow the pope was saying: “These irregular unions are OK."

And especially when he made those statements about civil unions and that they should be given the right to civil unions; that's more or less saying, “Hey, if America says we're going to give you aid, but you must have this regulation or this practice included in your country…” that's when Ambongo said “No.” Our Cardinal Fridolin said: “No, we don't want this here because we don't want to go against our culture. Never.”

But I think the main thing is that Fiducia supplicans, if you read it very carefully, it's not actually saying this is what should be allowed or not allowed. It is saying these are the people in an area of society where people need particular outreach to them, helping them up, leading them to a new position. And even the idea of giving them a blessing though they are in irregular unions.

What we did in Africa immediately was to say: “Well, the majority of the people that we know in irregular unions are not homosexual couples. They are people in polygamous marriages.”

That's the biggest problem, I think, throughout Africa. Those are people in irregular unions because it doesn't fit in with the Church's teaching of one man, one woman. I think that's the main concern there.

And once that had been said, and I think that Cardinal Fridolin explained that quite well, he came over to Rome and he made his representations. And I think that's when the pope said: “Yeah, no, no, I understand you've got a very different situation from other parts of the world.”

Many people saw it as ironic, because Pope Francis also spoke against ideological colonization, and in a sense some saw the debate around Fiducia supplicans as the Church trying to do the same thing to itself in Africa…

That we're actually conceding the ground, yes. But the main thing was, and I think the Western... Let me blame the media.

The Western media were very quick to identify that he's actually talking about homosexuals, but he was talking about all people in irregular unions. Now, you know yourself how many people are actually in second marriages with the first marriage not having been annulled or anything like that. And so they're in an irregular union.

Now, what Pope Francis was saying was: “Let's keep those people under our umbrella of care.” And I think it's summed up in his whole pastoral approach. Whoever is in trouble, let's bring them under the umbrella of care of the Church. I think that's what he's talking about people on the periphery, on the margins, and so on.

You've participated in two conclaves.

How did you personally prepare to vote, especially in prayer and your interior life during those conclaves?

The first one was particularly overwhelming. Remember, out of the 117 cardinals who were eligible to attend the conclave in 2005, only two had been at the conclave before. Out of 117, two. And that was Cardinal Ratzinger himself and Cardinal Baum, an American cardinal.

So we spent all that time of the congregations being told how you behave, what you can do, what you can't do, how you're going to do this, and how you're going to do that. So there was not very much time to actually start talking about the situation that the pope is going to have to deal with in a particular area and so on. So we didn't identify the problem areas and outline for the pope what needed to be given priority.

The next time round, in 2013, there were 60 of us who had been at the previous conclave. So minimal time was actually given to practicalities, bringing those who were coming to a conclave for the first time up to speed, giving them time to catch up.

They were told, here are the books, go read this here and do that. And the rest of the time was spent describing the situations that the new pope would have to take over and lead the Church into. I think that's why, when Pope Francis was elected, I think he had a much clearer idea of where to go and how to go about it.

I think it was from those congregations that the idea came that we had seen Pope Benedict trying to focus on the doctrine of the faith and then the idea followed: let's have a complete fresh look at the way in which the renewal is going to take place.

And with Pope Francis, I think this was an important one. Remember as Cardinal Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he was a key figure in the Aparecida Document, which was setting out for the Church in Latin America, a very, very important program of action. And I think he was particularly active at the conference and secretariat level. He had these things at his fingertips.

So when a suggestion came up, like the pope can't do all this alone, therefore he needs to surround himself with selected hand-picked cardinals who can be actors in an advisory council, he accepted that without any hesitation.

The second key proposal out of those congregations was that, as soon as possible, he should call together the leaders of the Church so that he could carry over to them what he wants them to do in the different parts of the Church. And that's how the 2014 extraordinary synod came about, and all that followed with the synods. I think that was a very, very good start, if you like, for what his pontificate was going to be about ideologically.

And thereafter, I remember practically every meeting of the Council for the Economy, Pope Francis came in at some stage to make sure that we knew that he was with us and he was getting some brief reports as to the areas that we were trying to cover.

Pope Francis has also named more cardinals from different parts of the world than ever before — the college is very global now.

Do you think we could see a pope from Africa or Asia?

I've been asked this question quite a few times. “Would you want a pope from Africa or a pope from Asia?” And my answer has been more guarded. And I'd say, “Look, I can see African and Asian cardinals who are working well in the system in the Vatican. Particularly those have been key ones in Pope Francis' administration.”

Now, I would see those guys as equipped to really get involved at the next level.

If the pope is going to be somebody who's had experience and an exposure to his own country, his own culture, his own continent, he also needs extremely good exposure to the workings at the universal Church level, whether he's Asian or African, doesn't matter to me. What is important is that it is somebody who is suited to the job that gets it. That's how I'd answer that question.

So if you're saying who could be? Tagle, Turkson, Erdő, these are the guys that I know have worked very well at their continental level and have got a lot of respect from their confreres.

But I'm not going to say because Ambongo is from Africa, he must get all the votes. I would hesitate to do that. I would say: “Let's get somebody who's been working with Pope Francis and has got a feel of how the thing goes.”

Whether it's African or Asian, European, Latin American, wouldn't really matter to me, I think. We want someone to carry on the building and the construction work. There's a foundation.

Now you put the building up, let it take shape on that foundation.

But of course Pope Francis had very little experience at the level of the universal Church when he was elected…

He didn't have much more than I would've had in the sense that apart from his exposure to a very, very intense planning exercise in Latin America that produced that Aparecida Document.

And if you look at the Aparecida Document, a lot of what Pope Francis later wrote in his encyclicals or put into practice you could see the foundations were there and he was working as part of a team.

I think that was the main thing for me was that he was part of a team. I think Cardinal Maradiaga was also part of that team. Quite a number of key people in that team. So when he starts putting this thing into action at the universal Church level, he knows that it's been thought out, it's been fought out, it's ready to be put into place.

So in past conclaves, at what point did you have a clear idea of the kind of person you're looking for, having discussed the priorities for the Church?

I think I'm just going to look and reflect on my own experience. I went into the first one not knowing who the heck I'm going to vote for because I didn't know anybody really. And then things like the way Cardinal Ratzinger, as dean of the College, led the funeral Mass for John Paul II… to me what came out so clearly was this man is not celebrating a funeral for the pope. It's his friend and it's our friend. That's how I felt too, the way Ratzinger did.

And the theme that he kept on: “You are Peter, you are the Christ, you are Peter, you are the Christ,” it just made me feel: “My goodness, this man's got something there.”

I had only seen, like most of people, Ratzinger as an “extreme conservative,” but here was this man leading the whole Church in a period of mourning and his whole focus is on Jesus and his beloved friend John Paul. Let me just put it bluntly like that.

Then yeah, I started thinking then: “Well, who is Ratzinger?”

The media was extremely negative towards him. They said he was “God's rotweiller,” and he was this, that and the other. I remember, we were sitting waiting to come down for our meal at Santa Marta, and one guy said: “How am I going to tell my people we voted for Ratzinger as pope?” And somebody said: “It depends which Ratzinger comes out of the conclave. If it's Ratzinger from Tübingen and Munich, we've got the pastor. Perfect. If it's Ratzinger from the Holy Office, then we are sunk.”

And who came out? Ratzinger from Tübingen and Munich, the pastor.

And I remember his first visit to Britain, I think it was one of his early visits, the first thing he does when he gets to Scotland and came down to England is to apologize for the scandal, the sexual abuse scandal.

But the most significant thing for me was when he went to Birmingham to do the beatification of Cardinal Newman, and what does he do? He starts off before them, before he gets into his homily, and he says: “Look, I want to apologize to you for what people from my country did to this city, Birmingham and Coventry next door. How we bombed the place to nothing.”

I said, my goodness, you must never write off anybody with preconceived ideas. You've got to wait to see what comes out of the man. And Benedict had that fantastic feel for ordinary people. The pastor was very strong in him.

Then comes Pope Francis, a very different prospect altogether. And the first thing he's doing is what? Going to wash feet in a prison. And among the people he is washing are Muslims, and there's couple of women as well.

You say, goodness gracious me, what's going on here? And we were having ferocious arguments in our diocese. Should we be washing the feet of women? And for Pope Francis? No problem. Not even just a woman, but the Muslim woman as well on top of that.

I mean, these are the kind of things that you can say, but when you do them there is a message that carries across. Christianity is reaching out to the people that need it, not the ones that you think need it, but the ones that need it.

There is obviously global media attention to the conclave, but a lot of media has a very superficial understanding of the Church in general.

There’s a Hollywood fascination with the idea of a conclave being secret, and that it is all politicking, but what is the role of faith, what is the divine aspect that can be missed?

And also the way it all comes into action as well, sometimes we've got the wrong idea about that.

It's not like St. Paul on the road to Damascus getting hit off his horse and having to go and get directions from somebody. It doesn't come to us as clearly as that there. Rather, you see little things happening and you say, “that's worth taking into account, that's something I hadn't thought of,” but it's something that I need to consider because it's not in my experience but yet somebody who's had the experience.

I think with Africa, for instance, the African synod in 1994 came out with a very strong idea, Africa for Africa, the Church is the family of God in Africa. Now families are very, very key. I mean, it's key everywhere in the world, but in Africa, it even goes further than that.

So when the Church says, when the bishops say, “The Church in Africa is the family of God in Africa,” I think they were saying there's something you can identify with from the African character and share with the world.

You mentioned that in South Africa, in your former Diocese of Durban, there was this big heated debate about whether women should participate in the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday and then you saw Pope Francis washing the feet of women.

When you come to the Vatican as a representative of your flock in its particular culture and you see the Church in other places doing very different things, how do you reconcile the sensitivities of local culture with wider consensus on issues like the role of women in the Church?

I think the dominance of men is still very, very, very prominent in African society. And therefore there are certain positions that you're just not going to dream of putting a woman into that position because after she's going to be up against not just individual persons, but a whole culture you could say.

But where we are, I think, blessed is that our communities are not unicultural. For instance, where I am at the moment, yes, the dominant culture would be Zulu, but there are also other cultural groups there. There's quite a large Indian community. There's a mixed-race colored community. There's a white community, which was the dominant one up to a number of years back.

Now, in each of these communities there are certain values that some would understand, some would reject and others would say: “Well, let's look at it.”

And I think with the washing of feet now, we just did it on Holy Thursday, there was no problem there. Six women, six men, six boys, six girls, whatever it was. So it's not an issue as much as it might've been at one stage. And I think it all comes from the example that, if the pope has done it, we can think that after all, who were the main disciples around Jesus after his death and his Resurrection?

The first one, the first witness is Mary Magdalene, and she's the one, but she knew her place and she knew that Peter had been chosen to be the leader. So when it comes to going into the gray into the tomb, even John stands back and lets Peter go through. So I think those symbolic actions have a bearing on who you would entrust a particular role to.

As a non-voting cardinal, but with a whole lifetime of experience of being a pastor, how much can you shape the conversations and help your brother cardinals?

How do you see the role of the non-electors?

I think it's too early, just for me to answer the question with any definiteness, because the only time I’ve seen anybody so far is seated in the audience hall and then at the tea break, which was still at the point of “How are you, where did you come, when did you get here?” and so on.

But there are among the voters, for instance, as we are sitting here, guys are getting together somewhere and talking about who do we look at and so on. But because I'm not voting, they maybe won't think to include me, but maybe I could make a contribution.

Does it feel strange for you to be on the margins a bit?

It does actually. And yet, I think then of the ones that have been here previously, they maybe haven’t voted since John Paul, but since then they haven't had an opportunity to really vote. They have been important, too.

But I think there are good building blocks for moving forward because they actually help to create realizable expectations, rather than to have the expectations that the pope is all-powerful. He isn’t, really. He's got to work with fellow human beings and we saw this with Francis. He would go so far and then he'd have to go back and pick up these guys and bring them forward with him.

I think there was that process going on all the time. For example, there were quite a lot of people that were not very happy with some of the financial reforms. Each dicastery, like Propaganda Fide, for instance, had a lot of buildings under their own control and nobody was asking them questions about those buildings. Nobody was asking them: “What are you doing with the money? Where is it? Are you getting a fair rental?” And all that kind of stuff. They were unhappy when it started.

But with the Council for the Economy put in place, now they're here to start interacting with each of these entities and see whether they're actually deriving the best benefit they could out of those buildings.

So there was real reform made in that sense?

Absolutely. I think transparency and accountability were very, very strongly emphasized.

And I think also, when I look at the Council for the Economy, you can't really assess what your financial position is unless you get in auditors that know what they are doing and are allowed to do what they have to do in order to get as transparent a picture as possible.

Well, as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, Cardinal George Pell spoke about how he was stonewalled in bringing in reforms.

He was, oh, yes, he was. But he managed to get them around and often he went around by getting the people in that particular dicastery to go for training and get up to the mark with what he was expecting them to do and what best practice.

It wasn't like it was Pell's own idea. It was best practice in the financial world and I think that's how a lot of the progress was made.

And he had a dogged character, there's no doubt about it. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed the fight

Looking ahead to the conclave, a lot of people are predicting a short conclave and an early result.

Others are suggesting that because many of the cardinals don’t know each other very well we could see a longer conclave.

How do you see it?

Well, the interesting thing is, I remember in one of the last conclaves, we went in in the afternoon, voted, and then again the next morning and the next afternoon, and we began to think this is longer than we should be taking, that we should have been clearer after one or two sessions — only to then find out that it was one of the shortest ones. But it still felt like a long one.

It felt long because we were so uncertain as to what we were going to do. It wasn't clear until, let's see, it was the fifth voting round, I guess.

Then the next one was somewhat similar — on each occasion we had voted by the evening, so we had a celebratory dinner at the end of the day.

That must be just a joyous occasion.

It was. Yeah, it was really good.

There’s often a sense that the Church is seen as irrelevant by the wider world yet, right now, the entire world is interested in the Catholic Church, in what it is doing and what it believes.

Is it just curiosity in the spectacle, or do you think there is something deeper that speaks to the world in the moment?

I think it's an acknowledgment, somewhere out there, that there are values and ideals that the Church is holding up. The world recognizes that they need them.

This is an occasional sort of saying: “Well, let's check in where we all stand in regard to this here.”

If for instance, we're choosing a pope, not because he's got certain policies like with a president of a country, where you're choosing him because he's promising you this and that and the other.

This man's being chosen to lead the Church on a spiritual level, yes, but also on a physical level and a social level. And in this case, I think it is also on the economic level. So I think that's all part of the fascination.