There is something delightfully medieval about the spectacle of white smoke rising over a 21st-century skyline. It’s a ritual the Vatican has polished into theatre: the conclave, the balcony, the applause. While cardinals chant and incense wafts, the world smolders: quite literally. And as the Catholic Church hunts for its next Supreme Pontiff, the question is must we always crown a caretaker, or is it finally time for a firestarter?
Let’s be clear. The next Pope will inherit not a throne but a crucible—climate catastrophe, economic apocalypse, AI ethics, nationalist surge, spiritual fatigue. He won’t just need to tend the flock; he’ll need to remind the flock why it’s worth following at all. Rome doesn’t need another diplomat in silk. It needs a street fighter in sandals. We live in a world besotted with billionaires and burnt offerings. Now, the only moral authority left might be the one who owns no stocks, commands no army, and blesses stray dogs with the same conviction as dying kings. The Pope should be that man—not cloistered in Vatican vaults but knee-deep in the mud of the margins. Someone who quotes James Baldwin and the Beatitudes in the same breath. Who understands that theology without teeth is just press release piety.
India, in particular, needs a Pope with guts. Christians here live with one eye on the altar and the other on anti-conversion violence. And yet, bishops issue only milksop statements, preferring cocktail diplomacy over Christ-like defiance. The Pope must break this spell of caution. A Pontiff who says to the persecuted: Your fear is not your faith. And to the powerful: Render unto Caesar, yes—but don’t confuse Caesar with God. The Church has spent centuries perfecting the art of not rocking the boat while drowning. The next Pope must turn that boat over. Not for show, but for survival. This means actual listening— not the curated, synodal performance of “consultation,” but the dangerous, unscripted kind where women and disenfranchised Dalits are not just heard but heeded.
India’s Church is a caste system with candles. Dalit Christians scrub the floors while upper-caste priests soar through seminaries. This is not theology; it’s apartheid in robes. The Pope must burn that scaffolding to the ground. Not with press conferences, but with appointments, with budgets, with liturgies that actually include the people who built the churches brick by brick.
Too many Popes have confused the Vatican for the world. The next one must know that the real Church hums in Kerala’s backwaters, in Jharkhand’s forests, in the slums of Rio and the migrant camps of Lampedusa. He must embrace pluralism not as a grudging concession but as divine choreography. India’s Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara rites have more ancient roots than many European dioceses. Don’t flatten them with Roman rigidity. Celebrate the mango leaf and the marigold along with the incense.
If the Gospel according to TikTok offends your sensibilities, you’re not paying attention. The next Pope must understand: the Church is haemorrhaging millennials not because they’re lazy, but because the sermons are. India’s Catholic youth are fluent in code, sarcasm, and two languages before breakfast. They don’t need more Latin—they need truth, told boldly, and maybe meme-able. The pulpit has gone digital. The Pope should too.
In the end, what we need is not a Pope who preserves the museum of faith but one who risks painting over the icons. The next Pontiff must hold a mirror to the Church—and let it flinch. Not just in Rome, but in Delhi, in Dindigul, in Dantewada. He must wield hope not as perfume but as provocation.
Because in a world already on fire, what Christianity needs isn’t a shepherd. Not just the flock of Christ, but everyone needs a spark. A Papal spark.