“As an elector cardinal, I did not expect it to be so soon,” António Marto stated, adding that although he could be elected, he neither desires it nor expects it to happen.
In 2018, António Marto, who was then the bishop of the Diocese of Leiria-Fátima, was named a cardinal by Pope Francis.
Pope Francis passed away today at the age of 88, concluding a 12-year pontificate noted for addressing sexual abuse, facing wars, and navigating a pandemic.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 17, 1936, Francis was the first Jesuit to lead the Catholic Church.
António Marto mentioned that he intends to travel to Rome “as soon as possible.”
“I’m just waiting for the funeral date to be announced because I’ll attend the funeral, and afterward, I must remain there for the general congregations, where discussions about the Church’s state and the new Pope’s profile will occur,” he explained, saying he would also stay for the new Pope’s inauguration.
When asked what kind of leader the next Catholic Church head should be, the cardinal remarked, “He must continue the processes that Pope Francis initiated and launched, which now need to be followed up.”
In response to whether a European pope would be chosen after a pope from the “end of the world,” the cardinal emphasized that “Europe today is neither the center of the world nor the center of the Church,” a fact to be considered.
“This Pope has set an example by focusing on the peripheries, doing things only a Latin American Pope could. I don’t think a European Pope could have accomplished what he did. He brought a sense of freedom—freedom of spirit,” he noted.
He also highlighted Francis’s “keen awareness of discerning the Church’s situation and what it needs to fulfill its mission in today’s world and time, without nostalgia for the past.” He continued, “It is in this time and world that the Church must carry out its mission, and no one chooses the time and world in which they want to live,” adding: “I believe in the Holy Spirit. In recent papacies, each has brought a charisma suited to their time. I believe the next one will as well,” he stated.
António Marto is one of four Portuguese elector cardinals who will participate in the conclave to choose Francis’s successor, along with Américo Aguiar, Manuel Clemente, and Tolentino de Mendonça.
António Marto, born in Chaves, is 77 years old. He was a student of Pope Benedict XVI (1927-2022), whom he welcomed in 2010 at the Sanctuary of Fátima, where he also received Francis in 2017 during the centenary of the Fátima events and the canonization of the shepherd children Francisco and Jacinta Marto.
He earned his doctorate in Theology in Rome, served as an auxiliary bishop of Braga, and worked in Viseu before assuming his position in the Diocese of Leiria-Fátima in June 2006, where he is now bishop emeritus.
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