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CAN YOU IMAGINE a Catholic Cardinal singing John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’?
It’s easy if you try, though some conservative accounts online have been claiming that this alone should disqualify Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle from becoming the next pope.
A clip of Cardinal Tagle singing along to Imagine in 2019 has gone somewhat viral in Catholic corners of social media.
He is deemed to be “papabile” – the closest English translation is “pope-able”.
LifeSiteNews is a Catholic conservative publication, and was hit with a social media ban for spreading Covid-19 conspiracies.
“Shocking”, reads a post on X of Cardinal Tagle singing along to Imagine.
🚨 Shocking: Cardinal Tagle Sings John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ – A Betrayal of Catholic Teaching?
— LifeSiteNews (@LifeSite) April 24, 2025
A stunning moment as Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle performs “Imagine”—the atheist anthem rejecting religion, heaven, and Christ’s Kingship.
✝️ Why this matters: The song’s lyrics… pic.twitter.com/J8U5PPJnR0
“A Betrayal of Catholic Teaching?,” it further asks.
It described the song as an “atheist anthem rejecting religion, heaven, and Christ’s Kingship”.
“Is this scandal or scandalous ignorance?”
While the lyrics to Lennon’s hit song do include lines such as “Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try” and “nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too”, Cardinal Tagle in fact sang an amended and shortened version which omitted these lyrics.
It all appears to be part of a smear campaign among conservative Catholics online to undermine the prospects of Cardinal Tagle, sometimes referred to as the “Asian Francis”, of becoming pope.
Another clip shows Tagle, once a Mass had ended, dancing with a statue of Christ as a child.
Please Lord…. Not Tagle
— 𝔸𝕋𝕣𝕒𝕕ℂ𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕝𝕚𝕔 ☧ (@ATradCatholic) April 27, 2025
What an absolute disgrace… if I was a filipino Catholic I would be absolutely embarrassed and ashamed of that man. pic.twitter.com/KWW9oa8Gt4
“Please Lord… Not Tagle,” reads one post on X accompanying the video that has close to 2,000 likes.
“What an absolute disgrace… if I was a Filipino Catholic I would be absolutely embarrassed and ashamed of that man.”
But to what extent do such campaigns influence what will happen during the conclave?
More than you might think, perhaps.
Yesterday, sources claimed that Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State under Francis and someone seen as a front-runner, had “suffered a sudden illness.”
It was claimed that he had elevated blood pressure and was attended to by a medical team that assisted him for an hour.
This afternoon, Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni was asked about this alleged incident by a reporter and “emphatically denied that it had occurred”.
Bruni also denied that doctors or nurses had intervened and said: “No, absolutely not.”
Meanwhile, people in the Philippines have been urged to tone down their support for the likes of their native Cardinal Tagle.
Both Tagle and fellow Filipino Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David have been the subject of popular videos and memes, such as this one of Filipino Cardinals arriving at the Vatican for Francis’s funeral to the tune of Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise.
who's that second cardinal? he seems so friendly pic.twitter.com/8qhNM0FcYR
— agn 🐢| comms open (@sleazyjanet) April 26, 2025
Cardinal David has described such clips as “campaign videos” and has discouraged people from creating or sharing them.
“Even with good intentions, they risk turning a sacred discernment into a worldly spectacle,” he said.
He also warned that it may “inadvertently pressure or politicise the conscience of the electors and distract from the silence and prayer needed to truly hear the voice of the Spirit”.
And in an indirect reference to the hit film Conclave, he noted that while “films and series about the conclave may be interesting”, they are “fictional, deliberately sensationalised and far removed from the reverent and prayerful reality of the actual event”.
And speaking of “inadvertent political pressure”, it’s unlikely US president Donald Trump did any favours for the remote chances of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
When asked who he would like to see as pope, Trump said he’d like to do it.
But then in a reference to Cardinal Dolan, he added: “We have a Cardinal that happens to be out of a place called New York who’s very good, so we’ll see what happens.”
I was excited to hear that President Trump is open to the idea of being the next Pope. This would truly be a dark horse candidate, but I would ask the papal conclave and Catholic faithful to keep an open mind about this possibility!
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) April 29, 2025
The first Pope-U.S. President combination has… pic.twitter.com/MM9vE5Uvzb
Senator Lindsay Graham urged people to “keep an open mind about this possibility” (it is not a possibility as Trump is not a baptised Catholic).
National Catholic Register also jokingly claimed that Trump would be ineligible because any candidate, according to Canon Law, “must be of sound mind”.
Trump has since posted an image of himself as pope to his Truth social media platform.
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 3, 2025
However, such an intervention by a global leader on behalf of Cardinal Dolan, especially Trump who clashed at points with Francis over the treatment of refugees and migrants, will do him no good as the Vatican is uneasy at the prospect of any outside interference.
Indeed, Cardinals have to take an oath to not assist any secular authorities “who might wish to intervene in the election of the Roman pontiff”.
And these are not medieval concerns – at a 1903 conclave, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria asserted his right to veto a candidate for the papacy as a Catholic monarch to block the election of the leading candidate.
Meanwhile, some Cardinals have been openly critical of Francis’s legacy in their pre-conclave meetings.
A day after Francis died, Cardinals were summoned to the Vatican to prepare for Francis’ funeral and start work on the conclave.
While only Cardinals aged 80 or under when a pope dies or resigns can vote in a conclave, all Cardinals can attend these pre-conclave meetings.
What happens in these meetings is meant to remain secret, though some snippets are fed to Vatican journalists.
According to the Jesuit magazine America, 83-year-old Cardinal Beniamino Stella “stunned” many present when he openly attacked Francis.
Stella accused Francis of “bypassing the long-standing tradition of the Church” in allowing lay people to hold positions of governance within the Roman Curia, a group of various Vatican bureaus that assist the pope.
In 2022, Francis allowed for the “involvement of lay men and women in the role of government and responsibility in the church.”
Cardinal Stella also accused Francis of having created “confusion”.
This has been a common critique of Francis – Cardinal Dolan for example called for the next pope to have “more clarity in teaching and refinement of the Church’s tradition”.
Many view calls for “clarity” as a call to undo some of the welcoming strides Francis made towards divorced Catholics and the LGBT community.
In 2018, Francis opened up the possibility for divorced Catholics to receive the Eucharist and in 2023, he allowed the blessing of same-sex couples in certain circumstances.
Meanwhile, there are reports that a lot of Cardinals simply do not know one another.
To combat this, they have been presented with a big book running to nearly 450 pages with a profile of each Cardinal, as well as a large colour photograph of each of them.
They have also been given lanyards to wear to prevent any potentially awkward moments.
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