From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christian, amiot. It's Wednesday, April twenty three, twenty twenty five. The International Monetary Fund says the Australian government, elected on May three, needs to tighten its purse strings if it wants to survive a recession caused by Donald Trump's trade war. A Greens candidate who claims Israel Is guilty of genocide is being boosted by Labour in the Prime Minister's seat of
Graindler as part of a preference swap deal. The nation's peak Jewish body slammed the move, saying the PM is rewarding political extremists. That exclusive story is live right now at the Australian dot com dot au. The world's most senior Catholic leaders are making their way to Rome following the death of Pope Francis on Monday, lay the late Pontiff to rest in the coming days before turning their minds to the question of who'll succeed the church's first
South American Pope. That's today's episode. Hi Jack, how was the flight?
Oh? It was a mad dash. Of course, trying to get a flight was always an issue. The plane was full, but I did get a seat, perhaps not as early as I would have liked, but I've arrived.
Jacqueline Magne is the Australian's europe correspondent. She was headed in the opposite direction to Scotland when she got word Pope Francis had died in Rome.
The hardest thing was actually finding a hotel that perhaps our accountants will be accommodating, because even as I was watching, the prices were doubling and then tripling. So it's not a cheap exercise to be in Rome at the moment.
The Vatican announced the Pontiff's death on Monday evening, as the Easter long weekend came to a close.
Cari si mi forrett elie la morte del Nostro Santo Padre Francesco.
Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has died.
His final days were spent in Rome's Gamelli Hospital, battling a prolonged asthmatic respiratory crisis while being treated for pneumonia and a complex lung infection.
This morning, confirmation from the Vatican he passed away from stroke and heart failure.
Today global leaders are paying their respects and remembering the Pontiff's legacy. The Vatican will observe a nine day period of mourning.
So Jack, we just heard there the bells of Saint Peter Square in the Vatican tolling to mark the death of Pope Francis. It came, of course, just one day after Catholics all over the world celebrated the Easter holiday. What's the mood like in Rome as the world reacts to the Pontiff's passing.
I think it's still shock. Most people thought that the Pope was recovering. It would not have been a surprise five weeks ago for the Pope to have died, but then he appeared to rally and get better, so people were very encouraged, even though he did look frail, that he was making the effort to see them and be
amongst them, and that was incredibly well received. So it was a big festive celebration of Easta but also of the Pope rejoining his flock, and so for him to have died just hours later really has just been such a huge shock to everybody.
In the coming days and weeks, the grief of the world's one point three billion Catholics will turn to curiosity about who comes next following the pope's funeral, and when the official morning period ends, a conclay is called. It's the ancient and secretive ritual that's seen two hundred and sixty six popes elected to lead the Catholic Church. The vote takes place in the storied Cistine Chapel under that ornate ceiling painted by Michelangelo in the fifteen hundreds. Sometimes
it last days, others weeks. Once it took three years. The ballots cast by eligible cardinals behind the lock doors of the chapel are kept secret, but the ending is always the same.
Looking right now that smoke is now coming out of the chimney, it is.
Oh very much white.
We have a new pope.
We asked Jack about the cardinals in line to be the next pope back in February when Pope Francis was hospitalized with pneumonia. Here's a bit of what she said.
Then, well, there's about a dozen front runners. So there's an Italian cardinal, Pietro Parolyn. There's a reason that he's a front runner because he's considered to be a steady hand. And there's also the Philippines Cardinal Louis Antonio Tagle, he's also fairly moderate. We've got Cardinal Peter Urdo from Hungary. He's very popular amongst all of the cardinals. And then you know you've got people like will the church go and elect someone who's from the Congo, Fridolin and Bongo.
He's the president of the African and Madagascar Symposium, so he has kind of control or authority of a significant area of the world. And then Robert Sara of Guinea. He's very conservative.
Jack has that changed now that everyone's had more time than they might have expected to mull it over.
All the cardinals, they're all coming in from all parts of the globe to try and be there at the first meeting, which was to decide when the Pope is going to lie in state and when the funeral is going to be held. So there's some pretty significant decisions to be made of events that will happen in the next few days, and so cardinals are literally in the air. The Australian Cardinal Bichok is in Israel as we speak.
He was in the air en route to Israel when he heard the news that the Pope had died so there's been these frantic efforts to reroot his itinery so that he can get to Rome as quickly as possible. So that's just one cardinal. Everybody else around the world as well is also trying to get to Rome. So the opportunities for the cardinals to get together to discuss
this have been quite limited. But I think it's a little bit too early to say, and to be honest, history will show that the bookies always get it wrong on this. So who people think might be the best pope not necessarily the pope that gets elected.
Pope Francis was, of course the first pope from the Americas. He was born to Italian immigrants in Buenos Aires.
Do you think this.
Upcoming conclave is an opportunity for another first in that we could see a pope from Asia or even Africa elected.
I think we might find that there is a certain backlash against the progressiveness of Pope Francis, that many of those within the church at the higher echelons were disappointed with the very left leaning liberal ways that the church was heading, and so there could be a real switch to go back to someone more conservative. So we can't rule out that there could be another pope outside of Europe. When we look at the church's popularity now, we see that it's in areas of Asia and South America where
the church is incredibly popular. So perhaps that may reflect the popularity of the church rather than its particular leanings. The fact that we're even talking about these cardinals as being candidates shows how much the church has changed over the last ten twenty years. If we look at who the voting cardinals are, you have to be under eighty to be able to vote for the pope, and if we look most of them, about sixty sixty five percent of them were actually appointed by Pope Francis. It will
be interesting to see who they actually vote for. So there will be a lot of lobbying and moving and shaking going on over the coming days, certainly after the funeral, and a lot of interesting developments going on around the church, with people laying out their stall really of what they're whether they're progressive or conservative, and really trying to attract their fellow cardinals to vote for them.
Coming up, what kind of legacy will Pope Francis leave. Pope Francis was a reformer, someone who's considered to have changed the papacy forever. He was embraced by progressives who celebrated his bucking of traditions and heralded his leadership as a new era for the Catholic Church.
Pol Francis has discussed the possibility of relaxing the discipline of priestly celibacy.
Pol Francis says Catholic priests can now bless same sex couples, but not for marriage. Honesty, courage, and responsibility, three qualities the pope says he wants everyone on earth to show in the battle against climate change.
Poor Francis has offered his deepest apologies to the people who suffer sexual abuse at the hand of Catholic priests, but.
More conservative Catholics felt he pushed the envelope too far, and his unprecedented availability to the world's media and his willingness to inject himself into global politics landed him in hot water more than once. Now, the cardinals eligible to vote in the conclave have a choice to make stay the course towards modernity or re established traditions forged over centuries. Jack Pope Francis was arguably the most visible pope in history, both in terms of his presence in the media and
the notoriety of some of his reforms. What kind of legacy will he leave, do you think?
I think Francis will most definitely be seen in an affectionate way, in that he was incredibly well intentioned. Everybody is very reflective of this pope as being incredibly humble, somebody who was with the people, who wanted to help the people and what is the church for? So he reflected that very generous liberal way of the church and trying to open up the church to a different way
and to modernize as well. But his successor will be somebody who will cast their own views upon the church and help guide the church in the way they want to see it. Head So it's to be seen. We won't know, but certainly upon the reflections of Francis, I think you know the coming days we will see everybody speak incredibly well of him and what he achieved. Whether people liked it or not is another matter, but they certainly cannot be critical of his intentions and his humbleness.
Jacqueline Magne is The Australian's europe correspondent. You can read her reporting on the legacy of Pope Francis and the upcoming conclave at the Australian dot Com dot Au