Anti-Francis Lobby Launches Smear Campaigns to Discredit Rivals in Runup to Conclave
Top cardinal in the race faces fierce antisemitic attacks from traditionalist Catholics and Holocaust denier
In this 2005 file photo, Catholic cardinals gathered in their final mass before heading into conclave to select the next pope.
Catholics who opposed the papacy of Pope Francis have launched an unprecedented fusillade of disinformation in the runup to the papal conclave, even threatening to denounce the election of a “heterodox” pope as “invalid.”
Terrified that no papal candidate of their choice has emerged so far as a candidate capable of mustering a two-thirds majority vote, hardliners are attempting to discredit the conclave and spread disinformation about cardinals named as potential winners.
Conservative Catholics are rooting for traditionalist cardinals Robert Sarah and Raymond Burke. However, the candidates rumored to have garnered the most support are the liberal cardinals Pietro Parolin and José Tolentino de Mendonça.
Vatican insiders told The Stream that Parolin’s supporters were switching their allegiance to Mendonça after the 70-year-old Parolin reportedly fainted on Wednesday during a General Congregation from “high blood pressure.”
Headwind from Papal Funeral
Parolin, who has been second-in-command after Pope Francis, has also “blotted his copybook as the chief architect of the failed Vatican-China accord” and failed to impress his fellow cardinals after “a rather lackluster performance” while delivering his homily at the second Novemdiales Mass, which took place during the scheduled Jubilee for Teenagers,” one insider revealed.
The cardinal “reportedly suffered a sudden illness due to elevated blood pressure and was attended to by a medical team that assisted him for an hour,” traditionalist Catholic journalist Diane Montagna reported on X, quoting Nico Spuntoni, an Italian journalist who writes for the traditionalist-leaning media outlet The New Daily Compass.
In a press briefing Monday, Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni emphatically denied that Parolin had fainted during a General Congregation. “No, this did not happen. It is not true,” he stated.
Bruni also denied that doctors or nurses had intervened, reiterating: “No, absolutely not.”
Vatican insiders have suggested that the story may have been made up to further discredit Parolin, who has been the top favorite of the bookies.
The headwind from the papal funeral, which demonstrated near-universal acclaim for the late Francis, has also distressed Catholics who felt displaced by his papacy and complained that several cardinals were capitalizing on his popularity to ensure the election of a successor who would continue his radical reforms.
Viganò Blasts Conclave
“No legitimate pope will come out of this conclave,” excommunicated Vatican whistleblower and former papal ambassador Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò declared in an interview widely publicized on various traditionalist and conservative Catholic websites.
Viganò condemned the conclave as illegitimate because the 136 cardinal electors already exceeds the maximum number of 120 set by Pope John Paul II’s apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis and Pope Benedict XVI’s moto proprio Normas Nonnullas.
“We are therefore faced with a very serious violation that alone would be enough to undermine the legitimacy of any supposedly valid conclave,” Viganò told journalist Francesco Borgonovo in the interview published on April 29. This is the first time in history more than 120 cardinal electors have gathered to vote.
In an April 27 blog post, Uruguyan Catholic apologist Daniel Iglesias Grèzes also warned that if “the next conclave were to have 135 cardinal electors, the resulting papal election would be null and void. The elected person would not be pope.”
Pope Francis Dispensed with Legal Stipulation
Henry Sire, author of The Dictator Pope: The Inside Story of the Francis Papacy, retweeted that post on X, warning: “Canon law states that election by a Conclave of more than 120 cardinals will be invalid. One of the many messes created by Pope Francis.”
Grèzes, however, stressed that the document also declares “null and void acts which would in any way temerariously presume to modify the regulations concerning the election or the college of electors,” arguing that the current number of cardinal electors is a modification of the rules.
However, the Holy See Press Office told media that Pope Francis, in the “exercise of his supreme power, has dispensed with this legislative provision.”
While Universi Dominici Gregis states that “the maximum number of cardinal electors must not exceed one hundred and twenty,” it also explains that “theologians and canonists of all times agree that this institution is not of its nature necessary for the valid election of the Roman Pontiff.”
A college of cardinals created by “a Jesuit who usurped the Papacy for twelve years cannot validly elect a legitimate pope,” Viganò complained, observing that Francis himself appointed 108 cardinals in the current conclave.
“At most, the College will be able to designate its own representative, someone who will renew and continue the usurpation of the recently deceased predecessor, and see the ongoing fraud further ratified by a complicit or cowardly episcopate,” he added.
Parolin Faces Antisemitic Smear Campaigns
In a smear campaign directed at Parolin, traditionalist Catholic and social media influencer Candace Owens posted a Times of Israel column by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach urging the Catholic Church to “recognize Israel as the biblical inheritance of the Jews.”
In his article, the Orthodox rabbi said he met Parolin on a recent trip to the Vatican and praised the secretary of state as “possessed of the warmth, humility, scholarship and utter professionalism that is characteristic of the Vatican’s highest leadership.”
“Catholics need to share this everywhere,” Owens tweeted. “A rabbi who is currently being sued for extortion and blackmail is pushing Cardinal Parolin for the next pope while publishing articles that the Vatican needs to recognize Israel as the inheritance of Jews.” Viganò reposted Owens’s attack on the American rabbi.
Prominent traditionalist podcaster Taylor Marshall echoed Owens’s attack on Parolin by posting a photograph of Parolin and Boteach standing together in the Apostolic Palace.
“Is this what we want? Zionist and American political activist Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (who runs a sex shop) is campaigning for Cardinal Parolin to be the next pope,” Marshall asked on X.
Online commentors pointed out that Marshall’s claims are false; Boteach does not run a sex shop. Yet his book Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy and his daughter’s Kosher Sex store in Tel Aviv have been the target of fierce criticism from traditionalist influencers.
Traditionalist priest Fr. James Mawdsley, a self-professed Holocaust denier who was canonically expelled from the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) in 2023, also posted images of Parolin with Boteach, claiming: “The devil wants Cardinal Parolin to become pope. Jews are desperate to use the Church to promote the evil of Zionism.”
While FSSP Provincial Secretary Fr. Daniel Powers confirmed Mawdsley’s canonical expulsion to The Stream in writing, Mawdsley continues to claim on his X bio that he has been “voluntarily suspended.”
Disinformation Campaign Targets Filipino Cardinal
A disinformation campaign that has gone viral, with over a million views, has been launched by multiple traditionalist Catholic media against Filipino cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle. A video posted on X shows 47 seconds of Tagle purportedly singing John Lennon’s song “Imagine.”
The post describes Tagle’s behavior as “shocking” and asks if his singing the Lennon song is “A Betrayal of Catholic Teaching?” since “Imagine” is an “atheist anthem rejecting religion, heaven, and Christ’s Kingship” and its “lyrics directly contradict Catholic doctrine.” The post adds: “Is this scandal or scandalous ignorance?” “Should a cardinal of the Church promote this?”
A note added by X readers clarified that “Cardinal Tagle sang an altered and shortened version of this song which doesn’t include anything against religion, heaven, Christ etc.”
“The video is available online and rather cringe, but it is not against Catholic teaching,” Fr. Matthew Schneider responded. He asked in a second tweet: “Why make stuff up? Is the few internet points worth the stain of your soul by publicly defaming a bishop?”
“This is not cringe. This is a Filipino priest doing what Filipinos and Filipino clerics do every single day. The faith is global,” Fr. Chris Vorderbruggen added.
Traditionalist Blog Shames “Problematic” Cardinals
Meanwhile, the blog Rorate Caeli, which is highly influential among traditionalist Catholics even though it is anonymously run, published a “guide of problematic cardinals.”
“If you hear one of the names below after the Habemus Papam [We have a pope] … it could be a sign of trouble in the years ahead: small, middle-sized, or huge problems,” the blog warned.
Rorate Caeli listed 35 cardinals as “those who may not be the best choices available for the Cardinal Electors in the 2025 Conclave — for doctrinal or moral reasons, or simply for reasons of administrative ineptitude.”
Sedevacantist Catholics, who do not believe that there has been a legitimate pope since Pope Pius XII died in 1958, added their voices to the discussion.
“The situation in which we find ourselves is utterly grotesque,” Mario Derksen noted on his popular Novus Ordo Watch blog. “What a madhouse Catholics have had to live through since the death of Pope Pius XII!”
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.