Cardinals choosing the next pope have been offered a dossier on candidates – with a subtext

When the cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday at the start of conclave, the process of electing a new pope, they will be sealed off from the world. But that doesn’t stop people trying to influence the thinking of the 133 prelates who will choose a successor to the late Pope Francis. The electors are allowed to take in written materials and, in the days leading up to the conclave, have been offered a book on their fellow cardinals – one which contains a clear message. Titled “The College of Cardinals Report,” it offers profiles on around 40 papal candidates, including a breakdown on where they stand on topics such as same-sex blessings, ordaining female deacons and the church’s teaching on contraception. The subtext: Choose a pope who will take the church in a different direction to Pope Francis – whose progressive reforms angered some conservatives. The College of Cardinals report is freely available online but has also been produced as a large format book. One retired cardinal, not eligible to take part in conclave, told CNN he had received a hard copy. The project has been led by two Catholic journalists, Edward Pentin, who is from Britain, and Diane Montagna, from the United States – both of whose work appears on traditionalist and conservative Catholic news sites. Montagna has been handing the book to cardinals entering and leaving the pre-conclave meetings, Reuters reported. The creators of the report say they produced the resource to help cardinals get to “know one another better” and that it was compiled by an “international and independent team of Catholic journalists and researchers.” It comes ahead of a conclave where the cardinals – a diverse group drawn from 71 countries, many of them appointed by Francis over the last decade – don’t know each other well and have been wearing name badges during their meetings. Asked by CNN whether cardinals will be able to take the report in with them to the conclave, a Vatican spokesman said: “What they take in is up to them.” But two church lawyers have told CNN that the report is far from impartial and is an attempt to influence the conclave in an anti-Francis direction. For example, it describes Cardinal Mario Grech, the Maltese prelate who has been tasked with overseeing a major reform process in the Roman Catholic Church, as “controversial,” while it heaps praise on US Cardinal Raymond Burke, a prominent critic of Francis. The report was compiled in association with Sophia Institute Press, a traditionalist-leaning publishing house based in New Hampshire, and Cardinalis, a magazine based in Versailles, France. Sophia Institute Press publishes the radically anti-Francis “Crisis Magazine” and in 2019 published the book “Infiltration,” which claims that in the 19th century, a group of “Modernists and Marxists” hatched a plan to “subvert the Catholic Church from within.” Meanwhile, Cardinalis regularly features articles on prominent conservative cardinals. The College of Cardinals Report website attempts to ward off accusations of bias, saying, “Our approach is fact-based and we strive to be impartial, offering as accurate a picture as possible of the sort of man who might one day fill the shoes of the Fisherman”– a reference to the first pope, St. Peter. Its authors also say there is historical precedent for their initiative, pointing to times when “diplomats and other trusted scribes would compile more in-depth and reliable biographies of the cardinals and distribute them to interested parties.” Pentin told CNN that the report “was conceived and created as a service to the members of the Sacred College to help them get to know one another in view of the next conclave and beyond. Naturally, we have sought to make the site and accompanying booklet accessible to as many cardinals as possible.” Dawn Eden Goldstein, a canon lawyer and Catholic author based in Washington DC, is skeptical, however. “Even if they were pushing for a cardinal in the mold of Francis, it is still banned according to the law of the church,” she told CNN. In his rules on the election of popes, John Paul II prohibited, on pain of excommunication, “all possible forms of interference, opposition” from political authorities, including “any individual or group” who “might attempt to exercise influence on the election of the Pope.” The idea behind the secrecy of the conclave is to prevent outside influence. In the past, European monarchs held a power of veto in a papal election, with the last one exercised in 1903. But the 2025 conclave has been subject to various kinds of attempts to influence it. Clerical sexual abuse survivors have set up a database to vet cardinals’ records on handling the issue, while social media has been full of controversial content – from AI-generated videos of cardinals partying in the Sistine Chapel to US President Donald Trump releasing an artificially created image of himself as the pope. Well-funded conservative Catholic groups are among the would-be influencers. Sophia Institute Press publishes books in partnership with The Eternal Word Network (EWTN), the largest religious broadcaster in the world and one which has often given a platform to Francis’ critics. The Napa Institute, a conservative Catholic group, has been present in Rome in the run-up to the conclave, as has the Papal Foundation, a group of Catholic philanthropists. “This room could raise a billion to help the church. So long as we have the right pope,” an anonymous Papal Foundation backer told the Times of London. Some members of these groups are also supporters of Trump. Tim Busch, a Californian lawyer and the co-founder of Napa, has described the Trump administration as the “most Christian he’s ever seen.” While Busch has rejected the claim he is “anti-Francis,” he said that the ultra-conservative Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò had “done us a great service” when he released a 2018 dossier calling on the late pope to resign. Viganò was last year excommunicated for schism. Kurt Martens, a professor of canon law from the Catholic University of America, said church legislation seeks to “protect the cardinals against all kinds of outside influencing and interference.” He pointed to the “Red Hat Report,” a US group that back in 2018 was seeking more than $1 million to compile dossiers on candidates in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the conclave that elected Francis. Martens said initiatives such as the cardinals’ report and the Red Hat Report “intend to not just give objective information, but colored information, and thereby seeks to influence the outcome of the conclave.” He added: “Per the rules of St. John Paul II, that is absolutely forbidden.” At the same time, cardinals are not easily influenced. Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the retired archbishop of Bombay, told CNN he is warning fellow cardinals about “fake news” on social media. He said he’d received the book on the cardinals but hadn’t gone through it. “It’s a well-produced volume, but I hope it’s accurate,” he added.