VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Representing a little over 4% of the globe’s Catholics but nearly 8% of those who will participate in the papal conclave, the 10 American cardinals in Rome this week already have outsized numerical influence in choosing the next pope. They boast deep, if painfully gained, experience in handling clergy sexual abuse, an issue that has bedeviled the church for decades, and are considered able financial administrators.
Not least, the U.S. contingent, who number 17 including the cardinals too old to vote, have the deepest pockets of any national church, which is the largest contributor by a wide margin to the pope’s charitable fund, called Peter’s Pence.
“While America may no longer be the superpower it was, U.S. Catholicism is still a superpower,” said Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology at Villanova University and leading Vatican expert.
What the American cardinals don’t bring is unity. “ It’s impossible to view them as one single voting bloc,” said Dan Cosacchi, vice president for mission and ministry at the University of Scranton. While not neatly matching U.S. political ideology, the cardinals can be categorized as favoring “continuity with” or “rupture from” Pope Francis’ papacy.
Francis made six of the voting cardinals and offered them important positions in the Vatican bureaucracy known as the Curia. That makes them capable of articulating the late pope’s message and vision for the future of the church.
Among the most outspoken is Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, 76, a member o …