At 9.47 a.m. on Easter Monday we heard the words ‘con profondo dolore’ from a cardinal standing in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta. Two hours earlier, Pope Francis ‘è tornato alla casa del Padre’ – ‘had returned to the house of the Father’. Most people won’t have noticed a curious detail: the cardinal was speaking Italian with a pronounced Irish brogue.
The incoming pope will face challenges that dwarf those that confronted any in living memory
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the papal ‘Camerlengo’, was born in a Dublin suburb. Or, as a tabloid put it: ‘Interim Pope is a bloke called Kevin from Dublin.’ That’s an exaggeration, but the Camerlengo does occupy centre stage when the See of Peter falls vacant. He confirms that the Pope is dead. Traditionally, he would tap his head with a silver hammer, but now they use an electrocardiogram. Cardinal Farrell sealed Francis’s apartment; he’s organising the funeral and conclave.
Not everyone is happy about this. Farrell, who has spent most of his career in the United States, is distrusted by many in the Church. He has been accused of lying about what he knew about the allegations against his friend, the recently deceased Theodore McCarrick. McCarrick was defrocked by Francis in 2019 after he was exposed as a serial predator of young men – an open secret in the Vatican and the American church for decades.
On Monday, Farrell stood in front of the sanctuary alongside the papal master of ceremonies, plus two of the most powerful men in the Vatican. They were Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the secretary of state, and Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the Pope’s chief of staff.
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