Tears in Turin, hope in Rome? Grech in the league of papabili as Francis’s health raises speculation

Cardinal Mario Grech entering the ‘papabili’ stakes could be the tonic to Malta’s Eurovision disappointment

Cardinal Mario Grech in a 2015 meeting with Pope Francis
Cardinal Mario Grech in a 2015 meeting with Pope Francis

First a cardinal, now a Pope? Bring it on! After a demoralising run at the Turin Eurovision this year, Malta’s zeal to punch above its weight might be assuaged by the prospect that one of its high-ranking prelates could have a shoo-in for Catholicism’s top job – the Pope.

That’s because 65 years young Mario Grech, the former bishop of Gozo who was made Cardinal, is being tipped as one of many ‘papabili’ among Vatican gossipers who have taken note of the increased frailty of Pope Francis.

Grech made the list in a Times (UK) report that polled Vaticanists from the Italian and international press, as succession is on their lips with Francis, 85, now consigned to a wheelchair and calling off foreign trips owing to ill health following nine years in office.

Malta’s Mario Grech is also interesting since he had a conservative reputation but became pro-Francis, although some conservatives may hope he would revert to form if elected Pope John L. Allen, Crux

And indeed it will be once again a battle between a conservative faction who dislike Francis’s “mercy-before-dogma style” and ‘liberals’ who approve of his outreach to gay Catholics and divorcees.

As secretary general of the synod of bishops before he was made cardinal in 2020, Mario Grech was dubbed as a “conservative but also close to Pope Francis” who could attract votes from progressives and conservatives at the conclave.

Grech had stunned Catholic hardliners with the Maltese archdiocese’s guidelines on Francis’s Amoris Laetitia, where he and Archbishop Charles Scicluna suggested that suggested that divorcees and remarried Catholics can assess for themselves their readiness to receive holy communion, and that priests should not turn them away from the sacraments.

To progressive Catholics and those outside looking in, the guidelines are welcome, because they exhort priests to meet persons in “irregular” situations and who show a “genuine desire [for] a serious process of personal discernment about their situation”, to assist them in this journey. 

Grech has praised Francis’s authentic way of living, saying it has “shaken many Christians and structures of the Church” by “jump-starting the engine” of the Second Vatican Council held more than 50 years ago.

Grech even says that ‘engine’ had stalled over the years, in Malta too, and that Francis had challenged priests to stand at the periphery, and look at themselves from the eyes of those standing on the outside.

What is not clear is if Francis will serve as pope until he dies or choose to retire like Benedict XVI. Few believe he would retire while Benedict, 95, is still alive, to avoid two retired popes looking over the shoulder of the next pontiff.

According to Crux’s veteran Vatican reporter John Allen, Francis’s opponents have a candidate to succeed him: Hungarian cardinal Peter Erdo, a ‘man of rules’. Other conservative candidates would be Dutch cardinal Wim Eijk and the Canadian cardinal Marc Ouellet.

“Malta’s Mario Grech is also interesting since he had a conservative reputation but became pro-Francis, although some conservatives may hope he would revert to form if elected Pope,” Allen said.