Op-Ed: Is an Asian Pope Next? Plus, My Confession.

By Emil Amok Guillermo

One of my favorite Prince songs is “The Pope.”

Start humming it if the idea of a Black Pope sounds appealing. Or an Asian one.

Pope Francis may have shocked the world with his death on Easter Monday, but he left the Catholic Church with a progressive bent that could provide the momentum to name an Asian or Black man as his replacement.

You don’t have to be Catholic to mourn that church’s spiritual leader, Pope Francis nee Jorge Maria Bergoglio, the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina.

As the first pope from Latin America in nearly 1,300 years,  Pope Francis was a breakthrough from the stranglehold of Catholic power from Europe and the Northern Hemisphere.  He represented the church’s mission of inclusion and diversity, and he governed with those values in mind. With a flock expanding into developing nations in Africa and Asia, Francis assured it was not an elite church, never forgetting the poor and those on the margins.

In his 12 years as pope, Francis also appointed 108 of the 135 cardinals who will decide his successor. The winner will need just 89 votes to become the next pope. Will there be coattails to the papacy, a Francis consensus?

FRONTRUNNERS

As the cardinals go behind lock doors, the handicappers point to two African leaders and an Asian Filipino.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, 76, was born in Ghana and was seen as a key adviser to Pope Francis on issues such as climate change and social justice. Pope Benedict brought him to the Vatican in 2009 as head of the Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice.

Another strong contender is Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, 65, a former parish priest  who ascended to cardinal in 2019. Known as a beacon for civil rights and social justice, in 2016 he was a leading voice defending pro-democratic demonstrations in the Congo.

But many Vatican observers put the front runner as Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, 67, of the Philippines.

A Filipino pope? People have called him “The Asian Francis,” with the charisma and charm.

Last week, we went from Good Friday to Easter Sunday to Oh My God, Monday.

MY POPE?

Francis will always be my pope. But I’m still not sure if the Catholic Church is my church.

I’d like to think Francis as the forgiving pope, would forgive me my doubts.

I confess. I am a bad Catholic. But a principled bad Catholic.

I don’t like how the church is run.

In the last twenty years, more than $5 billion was spent on the allegations of sexual abuse of minors, according to a Jan. 2025 report released by the Center for the Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

These are just the cases in the U.S. And it only goes back to 2000. It doesn’t include all the scandals that have occurred around the country.

I was never violated by a priest, but any violation–and there were more than 16,000 cases deemed credible by the report in the U.S. alone during in just over two decades— is a violation toward all 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.

Francis tried to make changes. He shut down the Peruvian-based Sodalitium Christianae Vitae because of a culture of sexual and psychological abuse of its members. In the U.S., he defrocked and laicized the convicted Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

But no matter what Francis did, any reforms to undo the sins of the Catholic pedophiles and abusers were never enough to stop or eradicate abuse.

Would the protestant way–allowing priests to marry–be a solution?  Possibly, but not for Catholicism.

On other fronts, Francis did seek greater acceptance for LGBTQ Catholics, authorizing blessings for same-sex couples, and allowing transgender people to be baptized and become godparents. But once again, did Francis go far enough?

Francis urged that women have a greater role in the church—but stopped well short of the priesthood. Too bad. Parishes with female administrators have been among the best church communities I have been a part of. At least one woman I know left the Oakland diocese and is now a practicing Episcopal minister, a holy mother.

I suppose in such a strict church culture bound by tradition, little moves are much bigger than they appear.

But it never seemed to be significant enough, at least to solve the problems of today’s church. And never enough to convince me the church had a monopoly on my spirituality. There are ways to be spiritual absent the dogma of Catholicism.

Yet, as I fail to reconcile the ways of the church and my own faith, I know how deeply Catholicism is rooted in my Filipinoness. And I know that the Holy Father, if I were fortunate to be in his presence, would have seen and heard me.

And maybe allowed for my confession.

If that happened, I may have rejoined his flock.

Now if the church, in the spirit of Francis,  were led by a person of color?

That could be spiritually enticing.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator.  His weekly columns on Asian American issues have been published since 1995, and won an American Book Award in 2000. See his micro-talk show on YouTube.com/@emilamok1.