The final chapter of The Last Pope, the book that Giovanni Maria Vian, journalist and former director of L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, has just published in Spain, is dedicated to delving into who could be the next pontiff. Titled The Name of the Successor, it consists of just four pages, in which two anecdotes on the subject are recalled, two statements by Pope Francis about the possible candidate. In response to a question from the bishop of Raguna in 2021, he said that "in 2025 it will be John XXIV who will make a future visit to the locality". And in 2023, when journalists asked him about a possible trip to Vietnam, he stated: "If I don't go, John XXIV will surely go."
Also mentioned in these pages are two cardinals who were previously identified as possible successors, Filipino cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle and Italian cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, currently president of the Italian Episcopal Conference.
This Monday, after learning of Francis' death, Maria Vian reaffirmed these possibilities but also admitted that "anything was possible," that even "a Pope who is not a cardinal could be chosen." Although "announced," he also acknowledges that the news of the pontiff's death was "completely unexpected." "Perhaps predictable because he had been advised two months of convalescence and he did not comply. Just yesterday he went out...," he points out.
And he predicts "two or three weeks of waiting" until the conclave, which he says will not be before May 5. "It's going to be a very difficult month because the succession is unpredictable." "One of the fundamental things about the Papacy is that, with each Pope's death, everything can change. It is an institution that is at stake every time a pontiff dies. And they may be willing to change everything. It has always been like that. And the successor is always quite different, if not very different from the previous one."
This interview was conducted days before the death of Pope Francis and updated subsequently.
Maria Vian also believes that "Francis has done nothing to appease the Church and that now, the existing clashes will be even more palpable." He would like the current Bishop of Stockholm, Anders Arborelius, or the Latin Patriarch, Bishop of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, to be Pope." He also believes that the Curia must be in turmoil because "they are no longer afraid to speak."
It can be said of Giovanni Maria Vian that he was born in the shadow of the Vatican. Even his ancestors were intimately related to the first pontiffs of the 20th century. His grandparents' wedding, back in 1903, was the last officiated by Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto shortly before going to the conclave of 1903, where he was elected Pope, becoming Pius X. And Paul VI -according to Maria Vian "the last decent Pope"- was in charge of baptizing both him and the rest of his siblings, the children of Nello Vian, who was the secretary of the Vatican Apostolic Library between 1949 and 1977.
Giovanni Maria Vian himself was also, years later, an archivist at the Vatican Secret Archives, where he specialized in paleography and, more specifically, in Byzantine manuscripts. A professor of philology of Christian literature at the University La Sapienza in Rome, a member of the scientific committee of the Encyclopedia of the Popes, and director of L'Osservatore Romano -the Vatican newspaper- from 2007 to 2018, this intellectual born in Rome in 1952 now publishes in Spain one of his most recent books, The Last Pope. Present and Future Challenges of the Catholic Church (Deusto).
In it, taking advantage of the so-called prophecy of St. Malachy, which predicts the end of the world after a Pope who will be known as Peter the Roman -a figure often attributed to Pope Francis-, Maria Vian hits the mark he wants to hit, the task of rediscovering the key elements of an ancient church that continues to learn to adapt to the present times: "The act of praying, the devil and the mystery of evil, human sexuality, impure acts, priestly celibacy, and synods and councils," among others.
Perhaps due to his condition as a journalist, Giovanni Maria Vian is the kind of enthusiastic intellectual who usually asks before being asked. Conducted via video conference, during the interview, it is possible to observe the impeccable and magnificent library that this specialist has behind him -and imagine the one that, most likely, he has in front of him- but Maria Vian likes -it shows- to lead and, after a friendly good afternoon, he directly asks: "And what do you do, religion or books?".
And as he mentions Popes, he will start pulling books from his shelves that he has written about many of them. Among those published in Spain, The Library of God, texts by Joseph Ratzinger (2006), Pope Francis Responds (2016), Paul VI, a Christian in the 20th century (2018), Life and Death of John Paul II (with an essay by Juan Manuel de Prada on fiction novels about the Vatican, in 2022). But Giovanni Maria Vian will even get up from his chair and disappear for a few seconds to search for certain Italian copies he wants to show, those dedicated to his favorite pontiff, which, as you already know, is Pius X. He wants to show them all.