The Catholic Church is on the verge of a transition of great consequence.
Thus the Next pope will not have been shaped by the experience of the Council and the immediate debates over its meaning and reception like Pope John Paul I.
As Catholic theologian, historian, and papal biographer George Weigel notes, the Next pope will probably have been a teenager or a very young man during the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965); he may even have been a child during those years.
The Catholic Church is on the verge of a transition of great consequence