What happens when the Church is without a pope? In this Flannel Panel episode, Cy Kellett, Joe Heschmeyer, and Chris Check discuss the real-world effects of the current sede vacante. With no Holy Father to appoint bishops or canonize saints, important moments—like the potential canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis—are on hold. The panel explores the theological and practical consequences of not having a pope and why the papacy remains essential to the life of the Church.
Transcript:
Cy: Trent Horn posted a video today about Pope Francis. And underneath it, people, you know, they write their comments and I read through the comments and there were probably four or five, maybe six comments saying, “I just came into the church yesterday and today I don’t have a Pope.” It was, I felt sad about that. It felt… well, it’s just sad, I guess.
Joe: Yeah, even, you know, I remember in 2005, I was in college and I’d never been in a church without a Pope before because I was born in ’85, so I was, what was I, I guess, 20 when Pope John Paul II died. And it was very startling as a cradle Catholic. I can only imagine people who have come in and then suddenly find themselves without a Pope. And, you know, I’m thinking in here in Kansas City, we’re in the process of getting a new bishop on the Kansas side. So that was already a great deal of change. And, yeah, so, you know, finding yourself without a bishop or a Pope all at once is a very strange spot to be at.
Chris: Joe. Yeah, Joe’s ahead of us in this regard. We’re not going to have a bishop named until there’s a new Pope.
Cy: I guess so. No, it can’t be right. Because by canon law, I don’t think even if the past Pope had already signed it or something, that will all be stopped until the new Pope comes. Right? None of that can happen.
Joe: Yeah, that’s right. Basically, everything in terms of church governance slows to a snail’s pace.
Cy: Wait, what is it usually at? What pace is the church governance usually at? If we’re going all the way down to snail’s pace.
Joe: I mean, if God wanted things to be done quickly, he would have put the Vatican somewhere else. But there is this…
Chris: French, the Italians, everybody.
Cy: We’ll go after the English next.
Joe: I mean, the Germans would have been fast. I don’t know if it would have gone well, but they would have been quick about it.
Cy: Yeah, right.
Chris: He put it in Rome. I mean, these were people who got stuff done.
Joe: Yeah, Romans.
Chris: That’s a good point.
Cy: So, past tense, what happened?
Chris: Go ahead, Joe, you were making a point.
Jow: Well, just that everything slows down right now because in terms of governing decisions, anything that can be put off will be put off. So there’s some day-to-day stuff just kind of keeping the lights on that will continue to happen for the next few weeks. And if there are any truly urgent matters, they can handle that. But anything that you can defer to the next Pope is supposed to be deferred. And so I think you can expect, you know, even, you know, Blessed Carlo Acutis. His canonization is now suspended.
Cy: I didn’t think of that. Oh, my goodness, Joe. Because lots of people were going to Rome for that.
Joe: Yes.
Cy: Oh, wow.
Joe: It puts our missed day off really in perspective when you think about all the people who are impacted in a much greater way. Just because all of these things that rely on the Pope’s presence and authority… yeah, we’re going to have to wait. And so please pray.
Cy: You know, on the one hand, it’s such a big deal, but the other side of being Catholic is we don’t have a bishop here in San Diego. We don’t have a Pope. Sunday Mass at the parish, weekday Mass, it’ll all just be the same. It’s odd to… it’s both hugely dramatic and also not dramatic at all.
Joe: Yeah, there is something to that. That part of the beauty of having tradition, part of the beauty of being part of something that is 2000 years old, is that you don’t have to worry, well, is this going to be a totally different religion with the next Pope?
Cy: Right, right.
Joe: You don’t want to say autopilot, because that’s not actually a spiritually healthy way to live, but there is a sense in which the fundamentals are baked in in such a way that there is some presence and peace, and thanks be to God.
Chris: And as Jimmy said in the previous hour, the likelihood of the seat being vacant for very long in modern times is very low. Unlikely.
Cy: What’s the longest? Do either of you know the longest? It’s been years.
Joe: The longest it was vacant was years, but that was many centuries ago. In the 20th century, most papal conclaves are just a few days long because, I mean, the current way it’s set up, you need a 2/3 majority. So if all of their… you actually, this is one of the small things I’ve heard secular media get wrong. They’ve been saying 138 voting age cardinals or cardinal electors. There’s actually 135 eligible cardinal electors. So 2/3 of that is, I believe, 90. So if 90 cardinals agree that someone would be a good Pope, then we’re good to go. And it, I believe it took four rounds of ballots for Pope Benedict XVI and five rounds for Pope Francis. But in both cases, we’re talking about two days. You have one day on day one, there’s only one round of voting, and then you have four rounds of voting on the subsequent days until, realistically, until you come up with the Pope.
Chris: This in the perspective of, for example, the Western Schism, where there are at 1.3 claimants to the throne of Peter. So it’s going to be a little bit of a wait, but it’s not going to be a long one.
Cy: Yeah, yeah, right. We’ve had… it’s funny, like, even in the time of the multiple claimants to the papacy, the day-to-day life of the church is pretty… I mean, Jesus gave us a very sturdy structure. The life of the church just goes on. We’re okay. You can…
Chris: Baptisms, marriages, it goes on in spite of us.
Cy: Right. I’m sure that…Yeah, yeah.
Well, I’m not claiming any responsibility for it. I’m just saying it keeps going.
Let’s get a little… go ahead, Joe, did you have something else to say?
Joe: Well, I mean, this is maybe the flip side to the thing we were talking about before. You know, it’s easy to lament, “Oh, everything is very slow moving.” The bureaucracy and, you know, people who want change are perennially disappointed. But this is actually a good thing, that you don’t want a church that is constantly trying to be cool, constantly trying to be, you know, trendy and relevant.
We’re not trying to be the world. We want to be appealing to the world, but not by becoming like the world.