With the passing of Pope Francis at the end of April, the world is watching closer than ever on what comes next for the Catholic Church. With global media attention surrounding the future of the papacy, and popular films like The Two Popes in 2019 and the recent 2024 release of Conclave bringing new perspectives on the Vatican, the process of selecting a new pope is once again a topic of public interest.
Pope Francis’ leadership had a profound impact on the Church, and his successor will be responsible for carrying on a tradition that has shaped the course of history over two millennia. But what happens when a pope dies versus resigns, and how do the Cardinals select a new leader of the Catholic faith? And what can we expect to see from Pope Leo XIV in leading the Catholic Church in the future?
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About the Experts:
Father James P. Burns, IVD, Ph.D., has served as president of Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota since 2018. Burns’ leadership is focused on delivering quality education founded in the university’s Lasallian Catholic mission, which calls for a practical education rooted in character formation and a deep grounding in liberal arts. He is also the major superior of his religious community, Voluntas Dei Institute, and is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Prior to Saint Mary’s, his previous leadership roles included dean of the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College, and assistant and associate professorships in graduate psychology at the University of St. Thomas and Boston College. The president received his undergraduate degree in accounting and graduate degree in counseling psychology, both from the University of St. Thomas. He went on to earn a doctorate in counseling psychology from Northeastern University with pre- and post-doctoral fellowships at Yale and Harvard.
Pierluca Azzaro, Ph.D., teaches history of political thought and Eastern European history at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, Italy. He also serves as the executive secretary of the Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation. Since 2010, he has edited and translated the Italian edition of the Collected Works of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI for the Liberia Editrice Vaticana (Vatican Publishing House). Azzaro is a member of a group of scholars dedicated to advancing the intellectual legacy of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. In his role as the Benedict XVI Chair for Saint Mary’s University, Azzaro contributes to the university’s mission of fostering a deep and reflective understanding of the complementarity of faith and reason, and the unity of knowledge.
