Bishop Joseph Coffey, the auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese for Military Services in Washington, D.C., told Newsmax on Tuesday that Catholics across the world are mourning the loss of Pope Francis despite past disagreements "politically or economically."
Coffey told "Newsline" that Catholics call the Pope "our Holy Father. He's the vicar of Christ on earth, representing Jesus for the 1.4 billion Catholics on earth, so naturally, we're all very sad."
The bishop continued later: "This is a time of prayer. We pray for our Holy Father, we may have had disagreements with him politically or economically or things like that, but ... he has the charisma of infallibility only in the area of faith and morals. So Catholics in good standing who love the Pope could disagree with him on other matters, maybe politically or economically, things like that" while still honoring him as the Holy Father.
Coffey noted during the interview that "this is only the third time in my almost 30 years of priesthood that we've had a death of a Pope, so there's going to be this period of mourning where Catholics around the world will be mourning for our Holy Father."
He went on to say that "there's 135 qualified cardinals that are under the age of 80 that will be able to vote for the next Pope. So there will be gathering and they will get a chance to speak to each other, and even the ones who are past the voting age, they'll be able to give their input as well before they go into the what we call the conclave."
The conclave, Coffey explained, involves a secret ballot that requires a two-thirds majority to elect the next Pontiff.
He added, "and then when we see that famous white smoke, we'll have a new Pope."
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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