These controversial problems could determine who becomes the next pope

The cardinals who went to Rome to elect the next Pope in a conclave next week next week seem sometimes ideologically polarized than many secular voters around the world.

At first glance, they seem to separate from the type of left-right lines that characterize political competitions elsewhere. Many leaders of the conservative Roman Catholic Church disagreed with Pope Francis, who was often a darling of liberals from around the world.

But the typical divisions between the progressives and the conservatives do not correspond so well with the ideological battles within the Vatican and the wider church. Although there are some exceptions among the cardinals, the question that has most constantly marked Francis as a liberal – his ferocious plea in the name of the migrants and the poor – does not necessarily distinguish it, because the Catholic Church called on the call of the Gospel to shelter and nourish foreigners a fundamental principle.

In the end, the choice of cardinals equivalent to a referendum on the opportunity to extend the inheritance of the inclusiveness and opening of Francis. It was “how he had a sense of living at a very polarized age,” said Anna Rowlands, a political theologian at the University of Durham in England.

Francis understood “what is at stake in polarization,” said Professor Rowlands, and was willing to accept the disagreement as a precursor of the dialogue. “The danger is that the church passes at a time when it could be tempted to choose a post,” she said, which could close the discussion.

More than any problem, the choice of next pontiff will be dominated by a philosophical question: which deserves a word to determine to determine the future of the Catholic Church?