Who will be the next Pope?

0:05Hello and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. I'm Julie Banks. If you're new here, hit follow and leave a review. Coming up. As Beyonce's mum releases her memoir, what will we learn about the roots of one of music's most successful artists? She also had to fight the record companies when they were producing Destiny Child's early works and they wanted them to look sort of less black and more like the other white pop stars of the day. And, you know, she was instrumental in pushing back against that. The Standards culture and lifestyle writer India Block will be here to tell us more.

0:48But first, the death of Pope Francis has prompted an outpouring of grief, with tributes from around the world being paid to the pontiff who passed away on Monday morning. It's been announced that his funeral will take place at the Vatican on Saturday, and joining us now with all the latest is The Standard's Melanie McDonagh. Melanie, what can you tell us about the traditions and customs that take place following the death of a Pope? Well, they're quite long established. So after the Pope dies, the Camerlenga, the Chamberlain, calls his name three times. In the old days, you hit his head with a little mallet three times just to make sure that he wasn't just comatose.

1:25So I can assume that that's been done. And then you've got the lying in state of the Pope. So that'll be in St. Peter's between now and Saturday when the funeral would take place. And in the case of Pope Francis, he's been a completely not a spoilsport. So there used to be a triple coffin. So a cypress casket and then a lead casket and then an oak casket. And he's doing it with all that. He said, no catafalque, no ceremony for the closure of the casket, nor the deposition. He is going, instead of being buried in St. Peter's, he'll be buried in the Basilica of St. Mary Major. So that's where some popes have been laid to rest, but not many in recent years.

2:13Obviously, those are all things that he'd requested. Do you think that's sort of indicative of the sort of character that he was, that he wanted things to be much more simple in his death? Yes, as I say, it was a complete spoilsport, a bit of a papal roundhead. So if it came to any sort of ceremony or flummery, he tended to do away with it. So instead of having lovely red slippers like Benedict did, he's got his old shabby orthopedic shoes. And instead of having the little red cape, the musetta, he just had a very simple white. And instead of the lovely gold cross, he'd go for a shabby sort of silver guilt affair.

2:46So he was quite austere in his way of doing things and his way of living. He lived in a fairly spartan little set of rooms in the Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican, which was a kind of guest house. And he stayed there in preference to the lovely paper departments. So I think his departure is kind of characteristic of the man. Now, several world leaders have already indicated their intention to attend Saturday's funeral. Who can we expect to be present? Well, Donald Trump and And Melania Trump. So J.D. Vance has had his fun and he met the Pope immediately before his death. So there's no truth in the rumour that the meeting was what saw the Pope off.

3:26And Donald Trump will be in the company of the King and Queen of Belgium, the President of Argentina, the President of the European Commission, and I believe the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, and the President of Germany, and obviously the Prime Minister of Italy and the President of Italy. So a great number of world leaders, including, incidentally, the Ukrainian president Zelensky. So it's one of those occasions when you can imagine kind of diplomatic encounters or non-encounters. So it is a place when people are going to be in very close physical proximity at the Vatican for the funerals.

4:02So if they want to sort of lean back and have a chat with another world leader, that's just the place to do it. And it's an environment where this kind of mixing is very possible in this kind of neutral space. So it would be a very positive step if this meeting were to engender quite constructive sort of conversations, which is the sort of thing that Francis would have liked, being a great peacemaker. And so following Pope Francis' death, a new pontiff will need to be chosen. What's the process that will take place next? Oh, it's all very fabulous. The whole business has got to take place between 15 and 20 days after the Pope's death.

4:37There's a kind of protocol for what happens. the cardinals are brought together into a physical space and they're on strict instructions not to bring their mobile phones with them. So they've got accommodation within the walls of the Vatican. They lose contact with the outside world and they're shut physically into the Sistine Chapel for the conclave for the vote. And then there's the command extra on nays, that is to say everybody is not actually voting get out. And the first round takes place in the first afternoon and then four the day after that. So it all depends on how evenly balanced the votes are.

5:12But it's all done rather nicely. You just kind of kneel before the altar and then place your physical ballot into a sort of chalice for Salva. So you write it down in a disguised handwriting and you fold it up and you put it into the chalice physically. Then one of the cardinal electors will thread all the ballots for one candidate and then another with a needle and thread. So they're physically brought together in one little space And so the whole process is very traditional and very physical, even down to the white smoke or the dark smoke that's used to convey to the outside world whether the Pope has been elected or not.

5:47So you'll have black smoke if there hasn't been Pope elected and white when they say Habemus Papu, we have a Pope. I love the idea that they've got to leave their mobile phones behind. That's obviously quite a modern thing that they now have to think about. Yes, some of them were terrifically badly behaved and indiscreet, especially the cardinals who are too old to vote. So if you're over 80, you're not allowed to vote anymore, which I think is a shame given that the more experience you have, I would have thought the better. But anyway, they're very mean and they won't let the over 80s vote. But they do take their revenge by gossiping to journalists outside.

6:20So I think we can look forward to a few leaks from that quarter. So who are the most likely contenders to be the next Pope? Honestly, it's anybody's guess. As I said in a column today, there's a saying in Rome, after a thin pope, a fat one, or maybe it's the other way around. And one can't actually predict with any certainty that the next pope will be in the image of the last one. So although Francis has absolutely packed the College of Cardinals with his own people, that is to say he's appointed over 80 % of the 135, I think, cardinal electors, many of them are from far-flung parts of the world, and it's not really possible to call how they'll jump.

6:59So although there are some people who you've got a vague idea whether they'll go for one candidate rather than another, there are many about whom we really don't know enough to say. So there's a few frontrunners, obviously. There's Mateusz Zupi, who is the Archbishop of Bologna. He's probably the favourite. If I were betting on it, he'd be the one I'd back. There's Luis Antonio Taglia, a Filipino. And he was one of the frontrunners until quite recently in 2022, when he was dismissed with the entire board of the charity Caritas, which kind of didn't exactly put him in the doghouse, but it meant that he wasn't quite the overall favourite that he had been.

7:38And there are some other candidates like Peter Erdog, the Archbishop of Budapest, and he's the primate of Hungary. He's quite conservative, but a very intelligent man. There's Wim Eich, the primate of the Netherlands. There's a few outsiders like Pierre Battista Pizzaballa, who is the Latin patriarch in Jerusalem, an extraordinarily difficult and fraught position at the moment. But one that I think he's carried out with great kind of tact and diplomacy as well as a real passion for the suffering in the region. And then there's a complete outsider who's the Englishman and a brand new candidate and my own friend, Timothy Radcliffe, who's 79 and not in great health.

8:20but he'd be the most wonderful poet because he's terrifically handsome.

8:28Let's go to a break. Coming up, the story of the matriarch behind Beyonce's success. A new memoir from Tina Knowles reveals the family roots of one of music's biggest stars. We'll see you back here in just a moment.

8:46Welcome back. The mother of one of the most successful musical artists of all time has released a book documenting her role in her daughter's musical careers, as well as sharing the stories of her own upbringing. Tina Knowles, mum to Beyonce and Solange, has released a memoir titled Matriarch, which is out today. And the standards culture and lifestyle writer, India Block, is here to give us the lowdown. India, despite her famous daughters, people may not know much about Tina Knowles, but she has created a very successful career of her own, hasn't she? Yes, I mean, you know, Tina's career is very much tied in some ways to her daughters.

9:25She was the designer and the stylist for Destiny's Child. But before all that, you know, when Beyonce was a baby, she was cutting herself through beauty school. She ran a very successful hair salon in Houston called Headliners. And that's how she got into styling Beyonce's hair. I think this was a really important thing because there weren't very many black stylists around. You know, she had to fight to keep Beyonce's hair looking good in some very famous shoots. and she also had to fight the record companies when they were producing Destiny Child's early works and they wanted them to look sort of less black and more like the other white pop stars of the day and you know she was instrumental in pushing back against that and developing a individual style for the young women so you know her career has been tied to that of her daughter Beyonce's and Solange's but it's also a very important story about the women in her family and what she's learned from them.

10:25And she's still very much in business. She is the vice chairperson of Sacred, which is Beyonce's haircare line. So yeah, she's a powerful woman that has raised powerful women. I know that the details from within this book are very much hot off the press and you've been busy writing up about that today. What have been the main headlines or top stories that are coming out of the book? I think everyone will obviously be looking for stories about Beyonce as, you know, the most famous woman mentioned in the book. But Tina is very clear about not invading her daughter's privacy. You're not going to be getting super juicy details about her marriage with Jay-Z, for example.

11:11But Tina did design her daughter's wedding dress, for example. That's a nice little touch where she's allowed to discuss it. we learn all about Tina Knowles' childhood growing up in Texas still during segregation I mean this was the 1950s so there's some really shocking anecdotes about that you know she glosses over the early days of Destiny's Child and some of the drama surrounding that but she's very clear about how important Kelly Rowland is to her she's basically a surrogate daughter to the Knowles family. Where she is very candid is about her own relationships. You know, we do know that her relationship with Matthew Knowles, the father of Beyonce and Solange, was very tempestuous.

11:57He struggled with alcohol. He had a lot of affairs during their marriage, including fathering a child outside of their marriage. And Tina's very candid about how hard it was for her to leave. You know, she tried to leave when Beyonce was born, realised she needed to make a financial plan. She actually left after Solange was born, but wasn't able to find a place to live safely with the girls. So she came back to him. And even when they filed for divorce, they ended up having an affair as an estranged couple and were back together. So it took a long time for her to leave that first marriage. She did remarry, but then she also divorced again.

12:40So I think when it comes to her own life and her own emotions. She's very candid, but she very much toes the party line when it comes to Beyoncé and Solange. There was never going to be a big reveal about what actually went down on that elevator. How well has the book been received by those who have managed to get their hands on a copy so far? And also, can we expect to see Tina sort of out and about promoting the book now? Will she start popping up on more TV shows or doing in-person events? Yes, she is scheduled to do some in-person events, which I think is all the more amazing, given that she reveals in the final chapters of the book that she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and underwent multiple surgeries.

13:21She was recuperating at her home in Malibu, but that burned down during the LA wildfires. So, you know, she's been through some enormous changes. But yes, it has already been on Oprah's book club, naturally. And she is going to be at the Southbank Centre in June at an evening hosted by Stella McCartney. And I think it has, you know, I mean, the reviews have been out for all of half an hour, but I think it has actually been received in the spirit in which it was written. This is not all about Beyonce, that there is a huge amount of life and history here to be told. And although Beyonce obviously isn't featuring in it, maybe as much as some people were hoping that she might be all in terms of stories to be told.

14:10Has Beyonce had anything to say about the book that we know of? I mean, famously, Beyonce doesn't really give interviews, and I'm sure everything has been pre-agreed. But you know, she obviously is very supportive. That's a clear through line to the book, the sort of love and care between mothers and daughters, even during challenging times. And she has joked, I think, previously, warning her mum not to spill the tea in the memoir, but the sense that you get from the book is one of complete support and devotion. And I don't think there will be anything coming out in this that would be a shock to Beyonce and her team.

14:50And that's The Standard. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. If you'd like to get in touch, drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk. This podcast will be back tomorrow at 4pm We'll see you then