Pope Francis died Monday morning, after more than a decade of leading the Roman Catholic church toward a rediscovery of its roots of inclusion and mercy. Already the debate has begun over whether the next pontiff will be equally public in the church’s need to care for the poor and downtrodden or if it will ratchet up its doctrinaire pursuit of cultural adherence. Like it or not, the public’s politics-dominated discourse will look toward the papal conclave with all the trappings of a partisan convention and the recent movie about the jockeying among the church’s cardinals.

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