Feature: Habemus Papam:  The Works of the Holy Spirit

At 16:10 Hrs GMT, on May 8, 2025, the white smoke started gushing out of the Sistine Chapel chimney in St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, to announce that a pope has been elected. After an hour later, at 17:25 Hrs. GMT,

The Protodeacon of the College of Cardinals and the Apostolic Signatura, Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, announced in Latin: “Annuntiovobisgaudium magnum: Habemus Papam! Eminentissimum ac reverendissimumDominumRobertumFranciscum. Sanctae Romane Ecclesiae Cardinalem Prevost. qui sibinomenimposuit Leo XIV.”” In English, he said, “I announce to you a great joy; we have a Pope! The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord Robert Francis. Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church Prevost. who has taken the name Leo XIV.”

Then, Pope Leo XIV, step out to greet the people in the Square and the whole world, with a blessing.

The Holy Spirit had once again picked His own pope for us. And this has always been the case, despite who people clamour for. The Italian saying, “He who enters the conclave as pope leaves as a cardinal,”confirms that frontrunners or those widely expected to win often do not.

Let us take a trip down from 1958. In the October 1958 Conclave, Cardinal Lercaro of Bologna and Cardinal Agagiannian of Armenia were frontrunners. Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, Archbishop of Venice, who felt he placed no chance, was wishing to get back to his beloved Vernice quickly enough, when he was picked by the Holy Spirit and he became Pope John XXIII. No one expected him to become pope, that even the papal tailor, Signor Gammarelli, had not included any set of papal cassocks to fit his heavyset size.

The Holy Spirit picked him and he was someone who came to transform the Catholic Church. Pope John XXIII, started the Second Vatican Council, which was completed after his death in 1963, by Pope Paul VI.

Vatican Council II, among many others, professes that every body, no matter the faith, race, sex or ideology can go to Heaven.

Meaning just as a Christian can be saved and make Heaven, so can a Muslim, Buddhist, Hinduist, traditional religion worshipper and atheist. This is a Catholic belief.

In the 1963 Conclave, the papabile candidates included Cardinals Giovanni Montini, Giacomo Lercaro of Bologna, Guiseppe Siri of Genoa and Gregorio Peitro Agagianian of Sicily.

It is stated in John-Peter’s “Heirs of the Fisherman: Behind the Scenes of Papal Death and Succession,” that Cardinal Montini had wanted to withdraw because of some moves by some cardinals to deny Italians, the papacy. He was urged on to continue and the Holy Spirit moved into the electors and he was elected to become Pope Paul VI.

In 1968, the Church was faced with the issue of allowing Catholics to use contraceptives. The College of Bishops agreed to this by consensus. It was left with Pope Paul VI’s endorsement. The Holy Spirit moved in him and he said “No,” to the proposal and gave reasons.

In his July 25, 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI prophesied to the world, that evil and immorality will triumph if contraceptives are allowed. He stated that there will be, 1). Infidelity and Moral Decline. 2). Lost of Respect for Women. 3). Abuse for Power. And, 4). Unlimited Dominion.

The fears of Pope Paul IV were ridiculed by the world at that time, but barely twenty years his prophecies came through, and we are living in horror. There was a surge in unplanned pregnancies even where various forms of contraception were used. Sexually transmitted diseases also took a hike and more deadly ones, hitherto, unknown came on board, notably, HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis with no form of cure in sight, yet. And to demean the human nature created by God, LGBTQ is now in our midst.

Pope Paul VI died in 1978 and in August there was a Conclave. Frontrunners were Cardinals, Sergio Pignedoli, Guiseppe Siri, Corrado Ursi, Giovanni Benelli, Sebastiano Baggio and non-cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero. The August Conclave was won by Cardinal Albino Luciani of Vernice, who became Pope John Paul I.

He died after thirty-three days as Pope and Conclave was assembled in October 1978. The frontrunners were Cardinal Guiseppe Siri of Genoa and Cardinal Giovanni Benelli of Florence. It was a hot race between the two, with Cardinal Benelli, at one time, only nine votes short of the required two-thirds majority, when the electors saw in Cardinal Karol Wojtyla from Socialist Poland, a compromised candidate and he started picking votes. At the eighth ballot, he won to become Pope John Paul II.

Pope John Paul II came at the height of the Cold War. His legacy is multifaceted, encompassing his role in the fall of communism, his global outreach and his contributions to interfaith dialogue and the development of the Catholic Church. He is remembered as a leader who championed peace, human dignity, and freedom, leaving an indelible mark on the Catholic Church and global politics.

When he died in 2005, another Conclave was assembled. As what can be said to be an exception to the rule, among the leading frontrunners, were Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany and Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Holy Spirit picked Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI.

And he came at the time the Church needed someone like him.His legacy is characterized by his intellectual depth, theological writings, and unique leadership style. He is remembered for his profound understanding of faith and reason, his contributions to the Church’s understanding of scripture and tradition, and his courage in addressing the issue of clerical sexual abuses. His papacy also saw him embrace new media and reach out to younger generations, solidifying his place as a 21st-century pope. He helped the Church to remain firm and to continue growing.He resigned in 2013 and Conclave was assembled to elect a new pope.

The frontrunners were Cardinals ChristophSchönborn of Austria, Odilo Scherer of Brazil, Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, Peter Appiah Tuckson of Ghana, Marc Ouellet of Canada, Peter Erdo of Hungary and Angelo Scola of Italy. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina, was least considered to get elected, because of his age.

The Holy Spirit saw a pope in the Argentine and he got elected to become Pope Francis. He became admired throughout the world for his advocacy of human rights and his distinctive legacy of reform.There is one thing which he did, that is about the protection and the preservation of the environment.

On May 24, 2015, he came out with his encyclical, the Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home, with four core themes, to remind us that the earth is God’s gift to us and we are mandated to take good care of it, for every living creature on it, shares this gift with us.The themes are, 1). Humankind is a peer among living beings in the material world, 2). Shared responsibility is the ethos required to sustain our common home 3). We can’t rely merely on markets and engineering to resolve the present crises and,4). Synthesis – not reductive analysis – is the path to true understanding.

Unfortunately, he also had serious backlashes from certain quarters as, Pope Paul VI, also had. We only have to pray that we do not get into serious environmental challenges in a decade to come, as happened when two decades after ignoring Pope Paul’s prophecies, things started going wrong in the area of human sexuality.

Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, 2025 and Conclave was assembled. And media worldwide again came out with the frontrunners which were, Cardinals, Anders Arborelius of Sweden, Jean-Marc Aveline of France, FridolinAmbongoBesungu of DR. Congo, Timothy Dolan of the USA, WimEijk of Holland, PéterErd? of Hungary, Fernando Filoni of Italy, William Goh of Singapore, Mario Grech of Malta, Claudio Gugerotti of Italy, PietroParolin of Italy, PierbattistaPizzaballa of Israel, Malcolm Ranjith of Sri Lanka, Robert Sarah of Guinea, Marcello Semeraro of Italy, Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, José Tolentino de Mendonça of Portugal, Peter Turkson of Ghana, Lazarus You Heung-sik of South Korea, and Matteo Zuppi of Italy.

As if the Holy Spirit was not noticing what was happening among, us, He picked from the 133 cardinal electors, 69-year-old, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the USA, a cardinal who was elected less than two years ago, on September 30, 2023, to become, Pope Leo XIV. What has the Holy Spirit seen in him that He picked him to lead His Church? Is he going to have solutions to the problems going on in America under President Trump, which are threatening the third world countries? Is he going to support Trump in his fight against LGBTQ ? Is the Church and the world going to be transformed under his papacy? We pray and thank the Holy Spirit for picking him to be our pope.

The Catholic Church has once again expressed faith in Jesus Christ by electing a successor in the line of St. Peter.

Hon Daniel Dugan

 

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