Veteran Vatican reporter shares inside information about the conclave to choose the next pope

What’s really going to happen as the conclave begins Wednesday in Vatican City to decide the next pope of the Roman Catholic Church? 

Nobody knows for sure, of course. But Hendro Munsterman, a veteran Vatican correspondent for Nederlands Dagblad, a Christian newspaper in The Netherlands, has some inside information. 

I met Munsterman last October at the Vatican press office when I was in Rome to cover the Roman Catholic Church’s Synod on Synodality. 

In his conversations with cardinals who will vote to select the next leader to represent 1.4 billion Catholics around the world, he has heard nothing but support for who Pope Francis was a person. 

But privately, some suggested Francis went too fast with his reforms, especially in his efforts to involve the laity in making decisions about the church—and may want to choose someone as pope who might slow things down, as happened following the death of Pope John XXIII during Vatican 2. 

Read my column in the Free Press.