What is Pope Francis’ legacy to the church? What can one hope for from the conclave that opens on May 7 to elect the successor to Francis? Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, S.D.B., 70, the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, answers these questions and more in this exclusive interview with America before he returned to Perth, Western Australia, after representing the Australian bishops at Francis’ funeral. He knew Francis because he was one of the delegates, hand-chosen by the pope, for the gatherings of Synod on Synodality in October 2023 and October 2024.
Gerard O’Connell: What stands out to you from the 12 years and 39 days that Francis was pope?
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe: A couple of things come to mind immediately. One is the extraordinary focus that the pope has given us on the mercy and compassion of God. It’s so fundamental to the Gospel, but Francis has made it the center of his proclamation of the Gospel. That has touched people’s hearts so much.
It is summed up beautifully in that famous expression that came very early on in the papacy, where he talked about the church as a field hospital in the midst of a battle and saw the church as a place where people’s wounds should be healed and their hearts should be warmed. I think that is a very good description of the ministry of Jesus, and it was the ministry of the pope.
Another thing that I reflect on as a bishop is that Francis has given us a new model of leadership in the church. It is leadership based on simplicity, on humility, on closeness to people, on openness to people. His famous insistence that the church should be a home for “tutti, tutti, tutti,” “todos, todos, todos”—that is something that leadership in the church needs to reflect on, whether we’re bishops or other people who have leadership roles. That idea of being close to people, meeting them where they are, being welcoming of them as they are and then wanting to accompany them in their journey, hopefully toward an ever deeper living of the fullness of their lives, is very important for the leadership of the church.
You took part in the Synod on Synodality. His last big goal was to bring about a synodal church. How do you read that now?
One of the interesting things about whoever is elected by the cardinals to lead the church as the pope into the future will be in exactly what ways the next pope understands, embraces and promotes the whole idea of synodality. Pope Francis made it clear that it was his absolute conviction that this was what God was asking of the church at this time. He made that even clearer at the end of the second assembly when he accepted the final document of the synod as part of the magisterium. Pope Francis tried to embed synodality as a culture, as a way of thinking, into the daily life of the church. I think many people will be looking to see that that continues into the future.
Some have said that he was weakening the hierarchical dimension of the church. Some people haven’t liked the fact that he opened voting at the synod to women. Some people say it’s creating confusion. What do you say to this?
I think the confusion is often more generated by sometimes deliberate misreadings of what the pope is really trying to achieve. I don’t get the sense at all that he wanted to weaken the hierarchy, for example, or the role of the bishop. I think he wanted, though, to remind us that the role of the bishop in the church, the role of the leadership in the church, needs to be embedded in the day-to-day life of the people of God. It’s not something above the people of God or even beside the people of God. It is in the heart of the people of God. That means, as the pope has insisted, that leaders have to be prepared to listen to their people, because the Holy Spirit speaks to everybody. It is only by listening that we can understand where the Holy Spirit is really leading us. People sometimes interpret that as meaning that we have an issue and we take a vote and the majority wins, but that’s not what the pope is saying at all.
I think what he has been trying to get us to understand is that we need to listen to all the ways in which the Holy Spirit speaks in and through the church, in and through the people of God, in order to discern carefully and prayerfully the way forward. Bishops have an essential role to play in that. It is their task to facilitate this deep listening in their own local churches so that, at the local level, the church can be confident that it is truly open to the Spirit.
I have never thought that the pope was trying to in any way change the nature of the church or undermine the leadership of the church. But he wanted to recast it in a more Gospel-oriented way. In the end, we are supposed to be disciples of Jesus, so we should be following his approach and his style.
Francis stood tall on the world stage as a moral authority. Is this something that comes from the office of pope or is it something that he himself, that each one brings?
It is both together. The potential of the office of the pope is enormous, and we saw that in the enormous outpouring of sorrow and gratitude around the pope’s funeral. That shows you the unifying power of the papacy. But there is the office, and then there’s the man who holds the office. And when those two things come together in the creative way that they did with Pope Francis, then you see the real power of the papacy.
In a week’s time, there will be a conclave. What do you hope will come from that?
This is a question that everybody is asking everybody. I did say on one occasion that the real question is not what kind of pope I want or what kind of pope somebody else wants. The real question is: What kind of pope does the Lord want us to find for the good of the church moving forward? I know that sounds like I’m avoiding the question, but it’s not really.
In the end, I always come back to the question of fidelity. The church is called to be faithful to the Lord, to the Gospel, to the reality of who we are as the church. The pope has a key role to play as a leader and a unifier in terms of those sorts of things. Fidelity to the Gospel can sound a little bit trite, but the Gospel is very radical when you look into it. The kinds of things that Jesus asks of his disciples, particularly in terms of their leadership of the early communities, turn the world upside down, just as Jesus turned things upside down. Nowhere else is the leader best exemplified by the gesture of getting on your hands and knees and washing people’s feet. That is the kind of leader that we need moving forward.
You’ve been in the synod, and you’ve seen that the axis of the church has moved away from Europe to elsewhere. Do you think it’s likely that they will return [the papacy] to Europe?
It is a really difficult question because although I’ve been involved in the synod, I would not see myself as having a deep knowledge of the situation in many other parts of the world. It’s quite possible that the new pope will come from Europe. But it is equally possible that he may come from another part of the world. Again, the real question is not so much “Do we need a pope from Africa? or “Do we need a pope from Asia?” or “Do we need a pope from Oceania?” or “Do we need a pope from Europe?” That is an interesting question, [but] probably not the essential question.
The real question is what kind of person we do need. There would be great excitement if the next pope were to come from Asia, for example, or from Africa. That would send an important signal about the universality of the church. But equally, if the right man is somewhere in Europe, then he is the one that we should look for and embrace.
When you sat there at the funeral Mass of Francis, what went through your head?
The main thing that went through my head was that the papacy itself, and Francis in his unique and particular way, has an enormous capacity to be a force for unity in the world. I saw that clearly in the size of the crowds and the variety of the people there, in the number of ecumenical observers, for example, and their joy at being there and being able to be a part of it. The capacity of the papacy to be a unifying force struck me strongly, and Francis was very successful in that.
