Could the next Pope be Irish? Frontrunners emerge amid Pope Francis health battle

Leading Catholic figures are openly discussing the possibility of Pope Francis stepping down amid a number of health issues.

The 88-year-old was admitted to hospital last week suffering from a number of infections and was later diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs and asthmatic bronchitis. 

While he was said to have "slightly improved" on Thursday, his condition has sparked talk of a new Pope in the result of his resignation, similar to that of Pope Benedict XVI, or his eventual death.

Pope Francis replaced Pope Benedict XVI in 2013 after the latter's resignation. Pope Francis has been a popular figure with Catholics worldwide and has at times been seen as a progessive figure at the head of the Church.

Could there be an Irish Pope?

Technically, any baptised Catholic man can be voted in as Pope but since 1378, a new Pope has been selected from a conclave of Cardinals. While voting within the College of Cardinals is restricted to those under 80 years of age, those over 80 years of age can still be selected.

Around 140 cardinals will gather in the Sistine Chapel to elect the new Pope and Cardinal Kevin Farrell could technically be selected, although it is unlikely.

The Dublin-born Farrell has served as prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life (since 2016), as Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church (since 2019) and as President of the Supreme Court of Vatican City (since 2024). He was educated in Spain and Italy and spent much of his life in the US where he served as Bishop of Dallas (2007‍–‍2016) and Auxiliary Bishop of Washington. He is close to Pope Francis and was named Camerlengo, a high-ranking member of the Clergy that runs the Vatican, in 2019.

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Of the Irish-linked Cardinals born outside Ireland, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke would be the most likely to be elected as Pope and is considered the leading arch-conservative in the church. He will be among those electing the new Pope. His Irish roots are in Cullen in North Cork where he visited back in 2010.

He told the Corkman newspaper at the time that in 1910 his grandmother, Hannah O'Keeffe, left Cullen and sailed from Queenstown (Cobh) to begin a new life in Wisconsin, USA. She married John Burke who's father came from Tipperary. Archbishop Raymond was the youngest of six children born to Hannah and John's son Thomas Burke and his wife Marie.

He led the Archdiocese of St. Louis in the US from 2004 to 2008 and the Diocese of La Crosse from 1995 to 2004. From 2008 to 2014, he was the prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. He has been a critic of Pope Francis liberal tendencies and pushed back against any relaxing of the Church's attitude to gay marriage.

Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, an Irish-American with two Irish parents who served as Archbishop of Boston from 2003 to 2024, could technically be selected as the new Pope, although again unlikely. He is not considered papabile, that being one of the contenders to succeed Pope Francis. He was considered papabile in 2013 when the election of Pope Francis took place. Given his age, he will also be unable to vote in the conclave.

In June 2010, after the Ryan Report and Murphy Report on the abuses by the Church in Ireland, O'Malley was named along with others to oversee the apostolic visitation of certain dioceses and seminaries in Ireland. He was named as the visitor to the Archdiocese of Dublin, Ferns, Ossory, and Kildare and Leighlin. He reported back to the Vatican on what steps the dioceses and seminaries had taken since the two reports were issued, and what else needed to happen.

The other Irish names among the 138 cardinals currently eligible to vote in the College of Cardinals include the Archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan who spoke at an event in Maynooth University in 2010 about his Irish roots.

He said at the time: "My great-great-grandparents came from Cavan and Leitrim in the mid-nineteenth century, desperately joining hundreds of thousands of other emaciated Irish fleeing the anguish of the famine.

“These starving, one-step-away-from cadavers arrived in America with nothing, nothing of earthly value, but with a heavenly treasure to-be-sure: a glimmer of faith, a sparkle of hope, the whisper of a prayer. And they built the Catholic Church in the United States.

"And this boy, thanks to Dolans, Sheerins, Murrays, Troys, and Hogans, was brought to a baptismal font in Maplewood, Missouri, in the winter of 1950, and was raised by parents who had the faith in their DNA, traceable to turf in Cavan and Leitrim, and who, while far from ‘shi-ite Catholics,’ took that faith sincerely and seriously, and taught me to do likewise.

"And this boy, while only seven, had the additional good fortune of being educated by brave Sisters of Mercy who came to Holy Infant Parish in Ballwin, Missouri, from Drogheda, who lovingly and effectively formed me and mightily encouraged my nascent priestly vocation, one of whom, Sister Mary Bosco Daly, is here this afternoon [in Maynooth in 2010].

“I understand it to be somewhat politically incorrect to say so in Ireland today, but, so what? I say, God bless the Sisters of Mercy!”

Canadian Cardinal Thomas Christopher Collins also has Irish links to Drogheda in Co Louth where he visited in 2012 after being appointed a Cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI. He has served as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Toronto from 2007 to 2023, the Bishop of Saint Paul in Alberta. His ancestors left Drogheda in 1832.

At the time of his visit, he said: "It is so wonderful to be here as this place is so precious in my family's history. The Canadian branch of the family settled near Guelph, Ontario, headed by John Collins. His son, Thomas, had ten children, and one, Christopher Columbas Collins was Cardinal Collins' great grandfather.

"My father was Thomas Collins and I have two sisters," he added.

"I've been to Drogheda once before but for a very short visit. I got off a bus and went to Shop Street but the Collins shop was gone, the Boiled Onion and the Enable Ireland shop were there and I didn't get to meet the family. So this was a great visit,' he added.

The frontrunners

The other frontrunners include Cardinal Pietro Parolin, 70, from Italy, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, 65, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cardinal Wim Eijk, 71, from the Netherlands, Cardinal Peter Erdo, 72, from Hungary, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, 67, from the Philippines, Cardinal Mario Grech, 67, from Malta and Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, 69, of Italy.