Hello, good friends. Bill Press here all the way from Bologna, Italy.

I know. I promised I'd stay out of your hair for a few weeks while I'm off on a sabbatical in Europe.

But I couldn't resist sending you a few thoughts on the death of Pope Francis,

whom I thought was a great Pope.

I was honored to see him twice, actually, once in St. Peter Square and once in the White House with Barack Obama.

You know, it's a lesson we all learned a long time ago, that no matter what plans we make,

unexpected events can always pop up and change everything.

And it's the lesson I learned again this week, because here I am in Bologna, Italy,

having decided to escape over here for a few weeks to study Italian and get as far away from politics as I could.

Yeah, it was a good plan, but due to one big, unexpected event, I'm suddenly in the middle of

another political campaign, this time a campaign for the next Pope, which is especially relevant, by the way, for residents of Bologna,

since Cardinal Mateo Zupi, the very popular Archbishop of Bologna, and a close friend of Francis,

by the way, is considered one of the leading candidates for the next pope, people they call

Papabile.

Now, of course, this election has global, not just national consequences.

It's about a lot more than who will be the next pope.

It's really about what direction the church is going to take after Pope Francis, the world's largest Christian church,

with 1.4 billion baptized Catholics as of 2024. What direction that church is going to take in the

future? Will it continue the open arms progressive outreach of the church, preached and practiced by Pope Francis until his

dying day, or will it go backward for the closed-door, ultra-conservative policies of Pope John

Paul II and Benedict XVI. Now, in one important respect, this campaign is different from any

other political campaign.

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