He’s a longshot, Save Jerseyans, but Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin (the Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey) is showing up on a few watch lists of papabile possibilities, those cardinals who have a higher-than-normal chance of emerging from the coming Vatican Conclave as the next pope.
It wouldn’t be a good thing! But it could happen, and unlike most people watching the events in Rome, I would not be completely shocked if Tobin emerged on the Benediction Loggia at St. Peter’s next month.
I’ll explain my pessimism where a hypothetical Tobin papacy is concerned:
Tobin, archbishop of the 1.3 million strong diocese encompassing 211 parishes across Bergen, Essex, Hudson, and Union counties) is far-Left. Very, Phil Murphy-style far Left. He’s indulged “trans” ideology, refused to criticize Democrats like Phil Murphy who’ve enacted heinous abortion policies, but also exhibited no such reluctance to attack Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
“We’re deeply concerned about the potential impact of mass deportation on children and families,” Cardinal Tobin complained shortly before President Trump’s second inaugural in January. “Within the Catholic tradition and other faith expressions represented here today, we’re able to see the humanity in everyone. We care for the most vulnerable — children, the poor, the orphans and yes, the immigrants.”
“May we honor his memory by building a Church that reflects the face of Jesus,” Tobin told his congregation after Francis’s death. “Merciful, welcoming, and always near to those on the margins.”
By “margins,” he means the margins of the CULTURE, not socio-economics.
Another far-Left supreme pontiff would be bad for some self-evident reason. Even if you’re not Catholic and are inclined to opine “who cares who the pope is?” or what he says, the reality is that the Catholic Church is over 1.4 billion strong globally and growing. The Pope as head of that church – the world’s largest religious institution 0 is undeniably the world’s single most recognizable and power religious figure. Effective popes like John Paul II can literally help reshape the world. Bad popes… well, at best, they’re a lost opportunity. At worst?
Most talking heads assume Tobin and the other American cardinals are none-starters because the College of Cardinals would be reluctant to further empower the world’s last true superpower especially at a time when Donald Trump is flexing U.S. power overseas. Maybe that’s the wrong way to look at it. 80% of the current College was appointed by Francis, a vocal critic of Trump-style conservative populism. What if those cardinals join with the older liberals in the Sistine Chapel and elect a liberal American cardinal to REBUKE the White House?
It (sort of) happened in the movies. Anthony Quinn’s 1968 classic The Shoes of the Fisherman told the story of a Russian bishop who, to the surprise of many, became pope and ultimately brokered peace between China, Russia, and the West and averted nuclear war by pledging to liquidate the Church’s legendary treasures.
May God help us if the Church leadership chooses picking a fight with Donald Trump over reform and moral clarity. The West is stronger when its oldest institution is strong.
