Is Cardinal Parolin the next cardinal dean?
It looks as though Pope Francis could be handing Cardinal Pietro Parolin the keys to the next conclave
With the lapse of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re’s five year term earlier this month, the College of Cardinals needs a new dean.
The dean, who is “first among equals” of the college, is supposed to play several key roles during a papal interregnum and conclave.
The dean is elected by only a small number of his brother cardinals from among their own number, and with the majority of electors over the age of 80, the list of candidates for the job is very short.
So who is eligible for the role, what does the dean do, and who elects him? Believe it or not, it’s more complicated than you might think.
But at the end of a complicated set of legal questions, and reports of some backroom politicking, it looks as though Pope Francis could be handing Cardinal Pietro Parolin the keys to the next conclave — and that could have a series of unintended consequences along the way.
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The dean of the College of Cardinals is, in the ordinary run of things, a mostly honorary position.
The job has no real functions to speak of beyond presiding at the funerals of brother cardinals, until the death of a pope, at which time it becomes very prominent indeed.
Most famously, during a sede vacante period, the dean presides over the general congregation meetings of the entire College of Cardinals, and coordinates the conclave of cardinal electors. He also leads the liturgy and preaches at the funeral of the pope.
By longstanding tradition, the dean of the College of Cardinals used to be a simple matter of seniority, but since 1965 he has been elected by the cardinal bishops, and from among their ranks.
“Cardinal bishops” is a confusing term of art. Most cardinals are bishops, but the formally designated “cardinal bishops” are the most senior members of the college, who are given the titular leadership of the Diocese of Rome’s ancient suburbican dioceses.
Other cardinals have the rank of either “cardinal priest” or “cardinal deacon,” and are given honorary titles attached to ancient churches of the Roman diocese, with the three orders of cardinals serving as an historical nod back to the time when the Bishop of Rome was elected by the clergy of the diocese.
Over the past decades, the ranks of cardinal priests and deacons has swelled considerably, as popes broadened membership of the College of Cardinals to ensure a global voice in the election of the pope in a conclave.
However, for a long time, the order of cardinal bishops was left relatively unreformed — with the only notable change coming in 1965, when Pope St. Paul VI incorporated cardinal patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches into the rank.
Nothing else changed until 2018, when Pope Francis named a four cardinals — all serving as prefects of major Vatican dicasteries at the time — to the order, without assigning titular suburbican dioceses to assign them. He added two more in 2020. Even so, there are only 12 cardinal bishops today.
In 2019, after the resignation of the last dean, 91-year-old Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Francis made an additional reform, changing the office of dean from a lifetime role after being elected once, to having a five year term which could be renewed once.
The current dean, Cardinal Battista Re, was elected by the other cardinal-bishops on Jan 18, 2020, and confirmed in the role by Pope Francis on Jan. 24, with his five-year term lapsing last week.
While there has been no official announcement from the Vatican, Re, who will turn 91 this week, is not expected to seek reelection — though he remains technically eligible to do so.
With an election pending, several news sites have run stories suggesting that two clear candidates for the role have emerged to become the new dean, Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and the current subdean of the College of Cardinals — also an elected position — Cardinal Leonardo Sandri.
Some commentators have speculated, though, that the vote has been delayed by Pope Francis — presumably delayed by the pope simply not providing formal legal notification to Cardinal Re that his term has expired — even though the cardinal bishops have apparently been assembled in Rome for several days, and ready to vote.
The reason given for Francis’ alleged interference is his supposed coolness on the possible elevation of the 81-year-old Cardinal Sandri, also an Argentine, who as current subdean was widely expected to be elected dean as a matter of courtesy.
Reasons differ for Francis’ supposed opposition to Sandri’s candidacy. Some commentators claim it is a personal grudge dating back to the pope’s time as Archbishop of Buenos Aries, when Sandri served as the deputy to Cardinal Sodano at the Secretariat of State and allegedly blocked several suggested episcopal nominations from Archbishop Bergolio.
But whatever the supposed reason for the pope’s alleged interest, the holdup in electing a new dean throws up some very interesting legal questions, and shines a light on the dynamics of a very small and aging group of churchmen — who remain influential solely on the matter of the interregnum.
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The current order of cardinal bishops has only 12 members, including the soon-to-be 91 year old Battista Re — though he is by no means the oldest member, or even the second oldest, with Cardinals Francis Arize (92) and José Saraiva Martins (93) taking those titles.
Joining those three in the next ballot for dean will be subdean and putative front-runner Cardinal Sandri (81), along with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (90), Cardinal Beniamino Stella (83) and the Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet (80) and Maronite patriarch Cardinal Béchara Boutros Raï (84) — none of whom are actually eligible to fulfill the functions of dean during the conclave or the general congregation meetings which precede it because of their age — meaning that if they are elected, the subdean, or another cardinal bishop according to established norms — will be responsible for the job.
The younger half of the order of cardinal bishops — those eligible to take part in a conclave — is made up by Cardinals Parolin (70), Fernando Filoni (78), and Luis Antonio Tagle (67), who are joined by Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako (75), patriarch of the Chaldean Church.
It is difficult to assess the credibility of several unsourced stories about Pope Francis’ apparent personal investment in the leader of the college, but assuming it is true, and assuming the pope would like to see Cardinal Parolin elected over Cardinal Sandri, it is an odd battle for the pope to pick.
If Sandri were elected dean, he’d be ineligible for any of the practical and administrative duties of dean prior to and during a conclave — though he would be the one to formally give notice of the pope’s death and to convoke the cardinals.
So, unless Francis has some particularly strong objection to Cardinal Sadri possibly presiding at his eventual funeral, it is difficult to see what difference Sandri’s elevation to an otherwise largely honorific position would make, either to Francis, or to the Church immediately after the pope’s death.
Even more curiously, if, as some have reported, Pope Francis is delaying the vote in the hopes of encouraging a Parolin victory, it might represent a possible risk for relatively little potential reward.
More than half of the voting cardinal bishops are over the age of 80 and thus excluded from a future conclave and, apart from the Maronite patriarch, none of those have other ecclesiastical offices to lose or gain.
In short, they make up probably the only body of clerics in the Church relatively insulated from papal influence, displeasure, or favor. If they decide — as men over 80 sometimes do when they sense they are not being respected — to assert themselves, they could decide to elect Sandri anyway, or even someone else entirely.
Apart from Sandri, election of many of the cardinal bishops over 80 as dean would throw up interesting possible eventualities. Consider, for example, the possibility of a confirmed liturgical traditionalist like Cardinal Arinze presiding at Francis’ papal funeral, even if he is ineligible to participate in a conclave or lead the preparatory general congregations.
But an open and suddenly contentious election might also throw up a viable candidate for the office, which could potentially shift the tone of a future conclave.
Cardinal Fernando Filoni is at 78 probably too old to be considered by anyone a serious candidate for pope. But he is young enough to assume the responsibilities of dean, and recent enough in office to have significant expertise — as St. John Paul II’s personal envoy to Iraq, Filoni is deeply steeped in the politics and history of the Middle East.
Filoni also sits at the center of an interesting dynamic within the small group of cardinal bishops: His term as prefect of the Dicastery for the Evangelization was cut short in 2019 to make way for the “baby” of the cardinal bishops, Cardinal Tagle.
Indeed, Filoni’s removal from that office — and Tagle’s promotion to it — also involved Parolin’s work, according to several different officials working at Propogana Fide. They all said at the time that it was Filoni’s lukewarm, even privately critical reception of the 2018 Vatican-Chinadeal — a signature Parolin project — which led to his departure.
The wider College of Cardinals might find that a dean Filoni could have a great deal to say, and a great deal worth hearing, if he found himself in charge of the next conclave. And with his deep ties to the Eastern Churches and his experience, that of being stymied for quietly voicing an honest but unpopular opinion, he could possibly attract support from cardinals like Sako, Raï, Stella, Ouellet, and Arinze. Add to that a disgruntled Re and Sandri, and it would be more than enough to see him elected.
Of course, such a prospect is extremely unlikely. But perhaps not much more unlikely than the idea of the pope quietly stalling the election of the dean to prevent the elevation of an already superannuated subdean as a courtesy.
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Whatever his supposed concerns about Sandri, a more interesting development would be if Francis really is, as some have suggested, interested in seeing Cardinal Parolin elected dean — especially since the Secretary of State is already in line to do most of the job anyway.
In all matters in which the cardinal dean cannot function because of age, his place is taken by the subdean, currently Sandri. In either office though, Sandri is ineligible to lead a conclave because he is over 80. In which case the role devolves to the senior eligible cardinal bishop in the traditional order of precedence.
Of the four cardinal bishops under 80, Cardinal Filoni is both the eldest and has been a cardinal the longest. However, by quirk of tradition, Parolin actually outranks Filoni in the order of precedence because his name appeared first in the 2018 announcement that both men had been made cardinal bishops on the same day.
As such, right now and even assuming Sandri were elected dean or remain as subdean indefinitely, Parolin is already in line to perform almost all the job’s functions prior to and during a future conclave — at least assuming one of the other three cardinal electors in the order is not elected subdean over him.
Of course, it is hard to think who might even be considered a viable candidate to serve as subdean under a dean Sandri elected in protest against the pope — none of the other three conclave eligible cardinal bishops would likely want the role under those terms.
But perhaps the most interesting consideration is, if Franics does want to see Parolin elected dean in his own right, what that might do to his stock in a future conclave?
By luck or judgement, Francis has, for some years now, avoided having any obvious successor emerge — indeed many pope watchers would say he’s deliberately cultivated a field of obviously rival candidates.
But, no matter how the conversation has evolved over the last ten years, by pure virtue of his senior curial position Cardinal Parolin has always been ranked highly among the potential pretenders to the papal throne, even as he’s faced controversies and Francis has moved to restrict his influence in some key policy areas.
If Parolin were handed the role of dean — either formally through a vote or de facto by being the most senior cardinal bishop allowed into a conclave — few would rule out his being able to make an unexpectedly compelling impression on his brother cardinals, as he has done before.
During the closed-door sessions of the 2023 synod on synodality, Parolin made what attendees called a “strong and clear” intervention, emphasizing fidelity to divine revelation, as interpreted by the Church's magisterium, while also praising the principle of synodality.
For many listeners, Parolin was setting out the case to put some clear boundaries around a synodal process and some of its more enthusiastic participants. Many more saw the cardinal as rising above a synodal process shot through with conflict and spiralling out of control. Some, for the first time, also saw him as a credible candidate for pope.
If Francis is pushing Parolin forward now to lead the College of Cardinals, and with it the next conclave, it would be the closest this pope has come to winking at a possible successor — and that could in itself trigger interesting and perhaps unintended consequences.
The Church could do worse than Cardinal Parolin in the drivers seat.
He's probably too old now, but for a while I wondered whether Filoni might be a dark horse papabile. Former sostituto and former propaganda fide head—not a bad resume. And people say the cardinals may want an Italian. I don't really understand the internal politics beyond that, though.