Convert in a conclave: Swedish cardinal remains in the spotlight

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When talking about the conclave turns to the challenge of secularism and bringing the Gospel to people who think they somehow have moved beyond a need for religion, the name of Sweden’s cardinal comes up as a possible candidate for pope.

The Le Figaro magazine, the weekly edition of the newspaper of the same name, mentioned Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm as a potential candidate in 2024.

It was a distinction he found “annoying” and refused to entertain the thought, saying it showed a lack of respect to Pope Francis, who was still very much alive.

After Pope Francis died April 21 and as the conclave’s May 7 opening approached, Cardinal Arborelius, 75, was aware that speculation only increased.

Le Figaro had described Cardinal Arborelius as “first and foremost a man of prayer but also a noted theologian, committed to ecumenism.” It also said his leadership of a church in “a highly secularized country where Catholicism is in the minority” is an advantage.

“This cardinal, who is not yet very well known, also enjoys a clear charisma, which is something indispensable for a pope,” Le Figaro said.

Pope Francis’ attention to people and places on the peripheries of global society and of the church also was reflected in many of the choices he made when selecting cardinals.

Sweden is a predominantly Protestant country where Catholics make up roughly 1.2% of the population of about 10.5 million people. The late pope visited the country in 2016 for an ecumenical commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

The next year then-Bishop Arborelius was visiting a parish in the southern Swedish province of Blekinge when two priests had happened to see that the pope had elevated their bishop to the cardinalate.

The elevation made him the first cardinal from Sweden and Scandinavia.

“It was a complete surprise to me,” he told the Swedish radio station Sveriges Radio shortly after the announcement. “At first I did not really believe it, but then they showed me the news on the internet.”

When asked why he thought Pope Francis would choose a cardinal from a country where the Catholic Church is so small, the bishop told Sveriges Radio that Pope Francis wanted to highlight “what it is to live in a secular society and still be able to develop the church.”

“For many people, a secular society is a kind of opposite reality to a Christian church, but more and more we see that it is possible also in a very secular atmosphere to be a prophetic sign, speaking about certain values that otherwise would be forgotten,” he said.

Born in 1949 in Sorengo, Switzerland, Cardinal Arborelius was raised in Lund, Sweden, as a Lutheran before joining the Catholic Church at the age of 20.

“As a child, I was hardly ever in church. But my mother prayed with me every night,” the cardinal said in a March 2023 interview with TV2000, the television network owned by the Italian bishops’ conference.

“In Sweden, very few go to church even if they are believers,” he said. Faith “is very personal and very private.”

His first contact with Catholicism was as a child accompanying his mother to visit her friend — a Swede who had converted and served as prioress of the Bridgettine monastery in Lugano.

After his own conversion, he told the local bishop he thought he wanted to become a diocesan priest. The bishop told him, “It’s too soon, you must wait,” he told TV2000.

While working at a Benedictine monastery in Luxembourg, he came across a copy of St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s “The Story of a Soul,” which ultimately inspired him to join the Discalced Carmelites. In 1979, was ordained a priest in Malmö.

In 1998, St. John Paul II appointed him bishop of Stockholm, making him the first ethnic Swede to made bishop since the Protestant Reformation.

The Diocese of Stockholm has seen significant changes, particularly due to immigration which has increased the number of Catholics. Seeking to make them feel more welcomed, the diocese offers ministry in more than a dozen languages.

Aside from his native Swedish, Cardinal Arborelius is fluent in Italian, Spanish, English, Dutch and German.

It was something that did not go unnoticed by Pope Francis. Eleven days before his final hospitalization, the pope meet at the Vatican with pilgrims from Scandinavia, including Sweden. Recalling the migrants welcomed in their country, particularly those from Latin America fleeing dictatorships, the pope urged them to “carry on being beacons of welcome and fraternal solidarity.”

Speaking to Catholic News Service April 28, Cardinal Arborelius said Sweden has become more restrictive in welcoming migrants and that he didn’t have the heart to tell the pope after he made his remarks to the pilgrims.

“I thought, ‘I don’t want to tell him that now it’s not like that anymore,'” he said. “The policy has changed totally. Of course, he always had a very good perception of the Swedish situation, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. Maybe I should have said something, but I thought, ‘No, he can have his good idea about our country.'”

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