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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   1362 thread views

Transnational Thursday for February 6, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/262047/pope-francis-to-take-meetings-at-home-while-sick-with-bronchitis-vatican-says

Pope's health is in the news again. For anyone saying 'Bronchitis isn't that big a deal' remember he's 88, in poor health even for his age, and this is not his first recent visible health decline causing alterations to normal papal activities. At some level there's wishcasting from an institutional church which views him as a wreckingball needing to be replaced by almost literally anyone else, but we can expect that this article, relying on public statements which would have come from within the inner circle, is less prone to that.

Just within the last few months, the pope has had repeated falls, multiple cancelled customary appearances, and admitted illnesses. I have noticed that journalists with better 'inside baseball' sources are less sanguine about the pope's health, although how much of that is wishcasting from the normiecon(=not used to a bad pope) bishops and priests who run the Vatican is hard to say. Either way, a 2025 conclave is definitely in the cards if probably not an immediate occurrence- there's not even rumors of practices for a papal funeral.

Is it expected that the next Pope will be more conservative?

I don't follow Church politics (which to my eyes seem even more esoteric and opaque than the secular ones), but I remember hearing that there was some rally of the conservative faction as a result of Francis becoming pope.

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