A paradoxical 'high-level outsider',
Swedish Cardinal Anders Arborelius, included in the list of
papabili (pope tips), has clear ideas and a ready joke.
"It would be fun to have a Swedish pope, but I think it is
rather unlikely. Very unlikely", he told the Swedish public
broadcaster SVT.
A 75-year-old Carmelite, he is the first cardinal from the
Scandinavian country (appointed in 2017 by Pope Francis), but is
also looked upon with a certain interest by cardinals who are
geographically very distant. Baptized in the Lutheran community,
at the age of twenty he decided to convert to Catholicism in a
context with an overwhelming Protestant majority: his rise in
the ecclesiastical hierarchies began like this. Born in
Switzerland in 1949 to Swedish parents, he grew up and studied
in Sweden. As a child he was not very active in the Lutheran
Church, but began to feel a great attraction for the Catholic
Church, which he chose to join in 1969. Dazzled by the figure of
Saint Therese of Lisieux, two years later he decided to join the
order of the Discalced Carmelites and entered the Carmelite
monastery of Norraby.
And this was precisely the most formative phase for him: the 27
years spent in the monastery. Arborelius studied theology at the
Catholic University of Bruges-Ostend, specialized at the
Pontifical Theological Faculty Teresianum in Rome and, at the
same time, also graduated in languages. In 1998, John Paul II
appointed him bishop of Stockholm, the only Catholic diocese in
the country that has jurisdiction over its entire territory.
Between 2005 and 2015 he was president of the Episcopal
Conference of Scandinavia. His courage in carrying forward his
ideas in a hyper-secularized Sweden and his vocation for
interreligious dialogue made him noticed by Bergoglio. In 2017,
he made him a cardinal and, according to some reconstructions,
recognized his undeniable leadership qualities. In Sweden,
Arborelius carried out numerous evangelization projects,
dedicating himself in particular to foreign communities.
He was among the signatories of the "Easter manifesto" that in
2005 asked to facilitate obtaining a residence permit for
refugees. And he is aligned with Francis also in the battles on
ecology. On other fronts, he defends priestly celibacy, opposes
the ordination of women and supports the moral teaching of the
Church on sexual ethics and gender. In short, he is considered a
conservative in doctrine but more than accustomed to extricating
himself from the pitfalls of modernity. Arborelius' episcopal
motto is "In Laudem Gloriae", the vocation to honor and glorify
God.
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