Cardinal Mario Grech - the 'potential compromise candidate' for papacy
Gozitan held a more conservative stance earlier in his career before becoming more progressive
Maltese Cardinal Mario Grech, who played a key role in Pope Francis's efforts to empower ordinary Catholics, is a peace broker and potential compromise candidate for the papacy.
Grech, 68, is secretary general of the Synod, heading the body that gathers information from local churches on crucial issues - such as the place of women or remarried divorcees - and passes it on to the pope.
Francis launched an unprecedented global canvassing of Catholics in 2021, asking their views on what needs to change in the Church, and two years later allowed lay people and women to vote in Synod assemblies, alongside bishops.
Both acts - intended to create more co-responsibility in the Church's governance and make it relevant to today's faithful - have alarmed traditionalists who defend the all-male, clerical-based hierarchy.
Appointed Synod chief in 2020, Grech managed to perform a delicate balancing act, following Francis's lead on creating an open, attentive Church while acknowledging the concerns of conservatives.
"I understand those who have doubts, or fears or different points of views. I have my fears as well," he said in an interview in May 2023 with Catholic news network EWTN.
"Some might think that we are on a way leading to a sort of a democracy. The Church is not a democracy, the Church is hierarchical," he said unequivocally.
Still, Grech has also described the "fraternal dialogue" between Catholics of all levels as essential to "help all assemblies - political, economic, scientific - to become places of encounter and not of confrontation".
The periphery
Grech was born on February 20, 1957, in Qala, a village on Gozo, the second-largest island in the tiny Mediterranean archipelago of Malta.
He was ordained in 1984 and travelled to Rome for a doctorate in canon law. Back in Malta, he served at the Gozo Cathedral and at the Ta' Pinu national Marian shrine before becoming a parish pastor.
Pope Benedict XVI appointed him bishop of Gozo in 2005, and he was made cardinal by Francis in 2020.
"I come from a very, very small parish in a diocese that's just as small, so in a way I do not understand why, from the periphery of the church, the pope called me," he told Vatican News at the time.
"But on the other hand, I can see that small things count in God's eyes, in the eyes of the Holy Father and in the eyes of the Church," he added.
Grech - who held a more conservative stance earlier in his career before becoming more progressive - has warned that Catholicism cannot be reduced to praying in church, but must be practised in everyday life, such as by helping others, reconciling with neighbours and living a life of service.
"The large community church is made up of small churches that gather in homes," he said in a 2020 interview with the Civilta Cattolica magazine.
"If there is no domestic church, the church has no future," he said.
Grech had already shown an affinity with liberal-leaning Francis in 2017, when he and Archbishop Charles Scicluna released pastoral guidelines broadly favourable to opening the door to remarried divorced people.
While in line with Francis's call for such flexibility and compassion, Grech's move was seen as trailblazing by the Church's liberal wing and sparked anger among conservatives.
The same tensions emerged over the Synod, particularly following the release by the Vatican in June of a document showing ordinary Catholics were calling for an opening to the LGBTQ community.
Grech has brushed off accusations there is a "hostile takeover" of the Church underway, and says his department has merely listened - to everyone, including those who "could not or did not want to" speak.
The conclave to choose the next pope starts on Wednesday.