Midnight Mutterings | Pink smoke

||| MIDNIGHT MUTTERINGS by JACKIE BATES |||

Almost two weeks ago, on April 21, 2025, Pope Francis died. I have been touched by his life since he was elected by the Papal Conclave in 2015, after his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI resigned in ill health.

Why am I so interested in this? I’m not Catholic. My father was mildly Methodist. My mother was born into the Church of England, which did not have a church in North Carolina where I grew up. I went to Episcopal and Baptist, as well as public schools and did time in Catholic School in fifth grade. Part of my extended family is Jewish.

By the time I was twelve, I concluded they couldn’t all be right, and ended up not believing in or practicing any formal religion. Some people with similar religious histories, while they do not belong to any formal religion, say they are spiritual. I ended up not believing in much. I do somehow believe in finding meaning where one can, in love, in kindness, generosity and tolerance, though I have personally failed mightily in all of those at times. In my early teens, I went with my boyfriend and his family to a Lutheran Church for a while, more to please them more than any faith on my part. Later, I realized that like for football, I didn’t have to go, just because other people I care about understand the rules and value the experience.

I appreciated some things about the Catholic Church in fifth grade. Mass was beautiful to me, Gregorian Chant music was divine. The ritual, at least what I understood of it was enchanting, a comfort, The priests’ clothing was the best of fashion and beauty, Stations of the Cross were my favorite. My older brother’s schooling was nomadic, and I went to school where he did. We were dropped off early at the Catholic Church by our father on his way to work. My brother preferred hanging at the bus station and learning sign language with a group of apparently homeless deaf men and sometimes paid me to join him there so he wouldn’t have to go to Mass. But I loved early mass with the incense and music and Latin and ritual. I didn’t have a rosary though I wanted one. I couldn’t take communion as I wasn’t baptized. I didn’t mind as the idea of imbibing the blood and body of Christ, which I took literally, was appalling. Another thing that bothered me even more was that the priests were so very superior to the nuns. They seemed to stroll around at large not doing very much that I could see, but were the disciplinarians, who punished little boys who preferred the company of deaf men at the bus station to Mass. Corporal punishment was the rule, though I didn’t personally witness it and my brother was too wily to get caught.

Here is what I did note: Boys could be alter boys, junior priests of sort. They we allowed to fill the fonts of holy water. Girls, even unbaptized, could clean. Even the chancel, even the alter, even the priests’ bathroom, where oddly enough, the holy water was kept in a covered enamel pot in the corner of the priests’ toilet stall before it was blessed and put into the fonts for dipping and genuflecting with the sign of the Cross when entering the sanctuary. Insulted, even at age ten, while I was eager to clean with the Catholic girls; we all had to vacate the sacred spaces a full 30 minutes before Mass, as though we might leave some contaminated essence in the male-only spaces.

Much later, forty plus years even, I was an active participant in an online breast cancer forum out of Nova Scotia. In 2005 Pope John II died and Pope Benedict 14 was elected by the Papal Conclave. That became a big discussion on the Off Topic section of the forum. There, I learned about the Conclave and how they, in the very secret College of Cardinals in their flashy red garments elected a new Pope. Each day, after the secret meetings, Black Smoke was released from the building where the Cardinals lived and met and voted during the Papal Conclave if the election was not yet decided. On the day when the final selection was decided, white smoke from the chimney announced that a decision had been made. A new Pope was elected. I mentioned that I was hoping for pink smoke which would have been impossible and the whole Conclave was male. There were no female Cardinals in the Catholic Church. Reaction to my comment was mixed in the all female Breast Cancer Forum in 2005.

Now, twenty years later, a beloved, progressive Pope has died and the ritual to elect a new Pope will begin in a few days. It will take as long as it takes. Black smoke will be released each day until a new Pope will be announced with the release of White Smoke. We will not see pink smoke this time. And many of us will not live to see the next time a new Pope is elected.

One last personal comment. I am distressed that the day before progressive Pope Francis, who defended the disenfranchised of the world, who wore a simple white cassock rather than the elaborate costumes of his forbears, who lived in a modest apartment instead of the ornate digs of former Popes (and who did not, alas, adequately address the sexual abuse by the Catholic priesthood) spent time on his next-to-last day on Earth with J. D. Vance. Though the visit was likely Pope Francis’ choice, I wished for a more peaceful next-to-last day for him.

Last notes on a subject which interests me more than it should, no doubt:

There is a movie I have not yet seen called ‘Conclave’ which was recommended to me by two people who have seen it. It is, I think, about the fictional history of the Popes’ election processes over history. I hear ‘Conclave’ once played in our local theater in downtown Eastsound, and can be seen on several streaming options online.

I am interested the Catholic Church and its representatives because they are beyond influential and powerful in the lives of millions of people in the world.

And here is an almost-book-like link to the nonfictional, I hope: www.britannica.com/topic/How-the-Pope-is-Elected: