The powerful Community of Sant’Egidio is not new to mobilizing in view of a conclave. It tried way back in 1978, betting on then cardinal archbishop of Naples Corrado Ursi, only to swing into action right afterward in ostentatious support of the elected Karol Wojtyla.
But it is thought to be mobilizing even more today with one of its own associates, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, declared in unison by the world media – and initially by Settimo Cielo too – as the candidate for pope brought up and promoted by the Community.
And yet it isn’t so. Because the candidate that Sant’Egidio is really grooming is not Zuppi, but the Portuguese cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça (in the photo by Franco Origlia / Getty Images).
The main reason for this selection is that Zuppi’s membership in the Community does not work in his favor, but against him. Because an ever greater number of cardinal electors are wary of a pontificate that would be at serious risk of being run by an external oligarchy, or rather, by a monocracy.
Cardinal George Pell, with his recognized expertise on the subject, used to say: “Be careful, because if Zuppi is elected in the conclave, the real pope will be Andrea Riccardi.”
Riccardi, 75, is the all-powerful founder and head of the Community. A renowned scholar of Church history, former minister for international cooperation, in 2009 awarded the Charlemagne Prize, and in 2022 even in the running for the presidency of the Italian Republic, he has always been the only one with the real and unchallenged power of command over that formidable machine which is Sant’Egidio, and over the men who compose it.
Cardinal Tolentino, on the contrary, not only does not belong to the Community, but he does not even figure in public as particularly linked to it. Nor do the men of Sant’Egidio, in backing one or another cardinal in his candidacy, declare themselves his associates. They sing his praises, yes, but as impartial observers who evaluate with due detachment.
But what are the elements of Tolentino’s profile that the men of Sant’Egidio accentuate, to promote his candidacy as pope?
First of all, the breadth of his geographical underpinnings, between the old world and the new. Tolentino was born in 1965 on the island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean, and spent his childhood in Angola, which at the time was a Portuguese colony but was already fighting for independence. He will always remember Africa with admiration for its “pre-modern enchantment.” Back in Madeira he entered the seminary at a very young age, and upon completing his studies, including a doctorate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, he settled permanently in Lisbon, as a professor and then dean of the faculty of theology at the Portuguese Catholic University, but also with academic positions overseas, in the United States at New York University and in Brazil in Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte.
A son of Europe but also of Africa and of the “peripheries” of the world, a man of letters and a poet but also attentive to the processes of liberation, Tolentino was for a long time the chaplain, in Lisbon, of the Capela do Rato, the epicenter of the opposition sit-ins that inspired the “Carnation Revolution” in 1974 and afterward became a place of cultural, political, and religious dialogue, also with the contribution of António Guterres, the current secretary general of the United Nations.
As of a few years ago, at the Capela do Rato, the Portuguese branch of the Community of Sant’Egidio has been organizing a Christmas Day lunch for the poor of Lisbon. But the affinities do not end there. Zuppi is remembered for his peacemaking role in the 1992 agreements in Mozambique, another former Portuguese colony in Africa. And above all, there is both in Tolentino and in the leaders of the Community the preeminence given to culture, for him to the Bible, theology, and contemporary literature above all, for the others to diplomacy and history, especially the history of the Church, of which almost all are university professors, starting with Riccardi.
And then there is the affinity in terms of dialogue, which for Sant’Egidio is above all between religions, with the big annual international conferences celebrated “in the spirit of Assisi,” with the parade of Christian leaders, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, etc., while for Tolentino it is above all between cultures, with books, with scholarly conferences, or with one-on-one meetings between him and a prominent intellectual, better if one far from the faith, after the pattern of the “Nonbelievers’ forum” invented by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini and the “Courtyard of the Gentiles” conceived by Benedict XVI and entrusted to Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi.
Ravasi, in the Vatican curia, today has his successor in Tolentino, as prefect of the dicastery for culture and education. Yes, because since Pope Francis called him to the Vatican in 2018, as an ordinary priest, to preach the spiritual exercises at the beginning of Lent, his career has been a lightning streak. Four months later, Francis appointed him as archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman Church; in 2019 he made him cardinal, and in 2022 top man for culture.
And as prefect of this dicastery, Tolentino has so far shown himself at his most original by calling to a meeting with the pope, on the morning of last June 14, a hundred or so comic actors from all over the world, some of great notoriety, with Whoopi Goldberg in the front row, who came flocking in droves despite being fierce anticlericals, without even being given the reason for their invitation. Among them was the Portuguese Ricardo Araújo Pereira, an atheist and already the counterpart in Lisbon for discussions with the future cardinal on “God: a question for believers and nonbelievers.”
Tolentino also shines, however, for his ability to operate with skill and refinement in places not usual for a churchman. For example, at the Venice Biennale, where he recently introduced a select audience to the complete rereading, over several evenings, of such a masterpiece of medieval mysticism as Meister Eckhart’s “Commentary on the Gospel of John.”
The dialogues in which both Tolentino and Zuppi excel have the advantage of not dividing the Church, but rather of comforting it. Even when they venture into mined terrain, like that of the wars underway in the world, the appeals for peace that they raise are so vague that they can be endorsed by everyone. Or they move – as in the case of Zuppi after his failed missions in Kyiv, Moscow, and Beijing – on the purely humanitarian terrain of prisoner exchanges and the repatriation of children, here too with the scantiest of results.
As for the doctrinal wars within the Church, those that have their epicenter in the synod of Germany and range from the new sexual morality to the sacred ordination of women, the line of conduct always practiced by the Community of Sant’Egidio is that of not taking a clear position on one side or the other.
Zuppi is a perfect enactor of this line of conduct, thanks to the cunning with which he says and says not, opens without ever throwing wide, always evasive on the most divisive issues. One example of this is the sibylline preface he wrote to the Italian edition of the book “Building a Bridge” by the Jesuit and friend of the pope James Martin, a staunch supporter of new pastoral care and new moral doctrine on homosexuality. The thesis of the book is clear, but the preface, on its own, not a bit.
And Tolentino? He too fully adopts this line of conduct. He preaches and practices with generosity the welcome of homosexuals into the Church, but without ever calling for a change in doctrine. He admits communion for the divorced and remarried, but only after Pope Francis allowed it with the exhortation “Amoris Laetitia.” He has not come out for or against the declaration “Fiducia Supplicans,” which allows the blessing of same-sex couples, heavily criticized by almost the whole Church of Africa.
Also on the sacred ordination of women Tolentino has never said what he thinks. But he wrote the preface to a 2022 book entitled “Women Religious, Women Deacons,” by the American theologian Phyllis Zagano, who strongly supports female ordination and is part of the study commission appointed by Pope Francis on the diaconate for women.
Tolentino also wrote the preface to a book by the Benedictine nun and Spanish feminist theologian Maria Teresa Forcades I Vila, whom he has repeatedly praised but without ever openly espousing her radical theses on abortion, the ordination of women, homosexuality, and the “queer revolution” in the Church.
In a conclave, this open but not rigidly aligned spirit would facilitate, according to the plans of the Community of Sant’Egidio, the convergence on Tolentino of a rather large number of cardinals of various outlooks.
But this fluidity of position could also produce the opposite effect. Few cardinals, in fact, would bet on a candidate so evasive as to clear decisions and of dubious leadership ability – which Tolentino has never exercised at the head of a diocese – moreover only 59 years old, after a pontificate like that of Francis, who is handing over to his successor a Church in full doctrinal and pastoral confusion, such as to leave dramatically uneasy for various reasons more or less everyone, right, left, and center.
In short, it is difficult to foresee that Tolentino could appear to the cardinal electors as the right man to restore a minimum of order to the government of the Church, with prudence and wisdom, all the more so with a lineup full of unknowns like that which Francis has already ordered to be implemented between now and October 2028, culminating in an “Ecclesial Assembly” that has no precedent in history and with a very detailed preparatory phase that he set in motion on March 11 from his bed in the Gemelli Hospital, communicated by letter to the bishops of the whole world.
Indifferent, Francis, as to whether he or his successor has to carry out this program of his.
(Translated by Matthew Sherry: traduttore@hotmail.com)
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Sandro Magister is past “vaticanista” of the Italian weekly L’Espresso.
The latest articles in English of his blog Settimo Cielo are on this page.
But the full archive of Settimo Cielo in English, from 2017 to today, is accessible.
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