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The conclave to elect the next pope will begin on May 7, but the Catholic cardinals who will cast the votes are already gathered in Rome, getting to know one another, attending meetings, discussing their priorities, and quietly pitching their top candidates. The maneuvering will be done with finesse and caution, to avoid the appearance of ambition. The language will be carefully weighed: A single poorly calculated speech can tank a front-runner’s chances.

On the internet, though, it’s a gloves-off moment for conservative Catholic clergy. Broadcasting to audiences on various social media platforms and podcasts, a number of Catholic priests have waded into the discourse to let their followers know just where they stand. No matter that they have no actual influence over the 133 men who will make the decision; they want the Catholic public to know which potential pope could be their salvation and which would spell disaster. Some are even casting doubt on whether the public can trust the outcome at all.

This is the first Catholic conclave since the solidification of a dissident online Catholic community, bound together by resentment and a sense of alienation and formed in the full, ugly bloom of the social media age. The men who lend this movement legitimacy—priests, bishops, and archbishops, some of whom have been disciplined by the Vatican—now have a message: This conclave is the one, narrow chance for the church to turn things around.

“The selection of the next pope will either mark the end of what has proven to be a very destructive liberal experiment, or it will reinforce the globalist progressive agenda,” wrote one priest who has 94,000 followers on X. “Pray and fast, indeed.”

These celebrity dissident priests want a pope who will, above all, value orthodoxy, which in their minds means firm traditional stances on LGBTQ+ people, gender roles, divorce, abortion, and family planning. Some have extremely strong opinions about liturgical practices that were changed under Francis, whom they refer to as “Bergoglio.” (The use of Francis’ pre-papal name is a tell for how one views his legitimacy.) A significant faction opposed Francis’ progressive economic stances and rhetoric around climate change and immigration. All believe the church has gotten too soft, too modern, and too wayward and “confused.”

Because these clergymen have chosen careers in which the pope matters at a very practical level for their lives—clashing with the hierarchy can mean getting worse assignments or even a full ousting from their jobs—there’s a desperation to their pre-conclave posting. Most seem to know they won’t get the pope of their dreams. But they also know it might be their last shot, perhaps for decades, at returning to power.

“I feel like traditional Catholic Twitter is a bunch of foster-children stuck in Stockholm Syndrome,” wrote one priest with 43,000 followers. He clearly had a problem with defeatist attitudes from his conservative allies when it came to the conclave: “Half say ‘Bad Daddy wasn’t so bad.’ The other half say ‘Let’s hope dat next bad Daddy don’t beat us so much.’ That’s not what Catholicism is supposed to be. Let’s pray to God that He send a rescuer for all us Stockholm Syndrome Catholics who (rightly) want holy leadership in the Church.”

Their favorite candidates include, in decreasing order of likelihood, cardinals Péter Erdő, a scholarly Hungarian who is seen as an ally of President Viktor Orbán; Robert Sarah, a Guinean who has been seen as a major leader of the traditionalist camp; Gerhard Müller, a hard-line German who openly criticized Francis’ leadership; and Raymond Leo Burke, an American conspiracy theorist who formally challenged Francis’ teaching on divorce.

Former priest Frank Pavone, a pro-Trump activist with 242,000 followers on X, publicly vouched for Sarah. He has aired his views on Vatican matters as a guest on political shows, including Rudy Giuliani’s. Francis kicked Pavone out of the priesthood in 2022, citing “blasphemous communications on social media”; Pavone at one point filmed a pro-Trump video in which he placed fetal remains on what appeared to be an altar. He is particularly motivated to root for a traditionalist leader: He has argued that “the next pope can reinstate me.”

Fr. James Altman, a priest with a YouTube channel of 50,000 subscribers, indicated he would be happy with any of the traditionalist contenders. “It would take a miracle - all glory be to God - may the great Cardinal Sarah restore the Vicar of Christ!” he wrote on X on April 24. “If only we get him, or such as him, for the next Vicar of Christ,” he wrote of Burke less than 10 minutes later. Then, later that evening, in a post with ambiguous intent: “GO CARDINAL MULLER!” Altman, too, is clinging to social media for relevance: After he filmed a video in 2020 arguing people could not vote for a Democrat and be Catholic, he was banned from celebrating Mass. He earned the support of people such as actor Mel Gibson, and he has since leaned further into his identity as a harsh truth-teller. When the pope died, Altman wrote “GOD IS JUST. Bergoglio, Cupich, Gregory, et al. WILL burn in the Hell they justly deserve. Or, wait, unrepentant Bergoglio already is!”

Not all of these influencers mention specific candidates; some, such as Bishop Joseph Strickland, speak ominously of the odds they’re up against and of a “false gospel” that has lured some of the cardinal electors away from divine truth. Strickland, a Texas bishop known for criticizing the pope and calling Joe Biden “evil,” was removed from his office in 2023 after refusing to resign; he remains active on social media. On April 30, he pleaded with his followers to “storm heaven” with a prayer “before, during, and after the Conclave.” The prayer, which was shared by another dissident priest, had been written by the right-wing Cardinal Burke and urged the Virgin Mary to intercede in the cardinals’ decisionmaking. Strickland also offered his own prayer, on his Substack.

You may have noticed a trend in reading the descriptions of the men above: Each of these figures are Americans who also spoke out about U.S. partisan politics. Francis’ conservative opposition was always strongest in the U.S., where right-wing Catholics have tended to map Vatican politics onto national culture wars. That has served some of these right-wing clergy members well, elevating their national profiles. In recent years, some started making appearances on Fox News or Newsmax or made themselves into heroes by getting arrested at abortion clinics. Strickland and Pavone both prayed at the election denial “Jericho March” that preceded the insurrection at the Capitol, appearing alongside Alex Jones and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes. Strickland and Altman have spoken at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Strickland was the star guest at a March Mar-a-Lago event that drew nearly 100 priests to pray for the country along with Michael Flynn.

Still, it’s not just MAGA politics that these right-wing Catholic clergy members absorbed from American internet culture: QAnon-like conspiratorial thinking has emerged in the subculture as well. The priest who complained about “Stockholm Syndrome” was also asked by a follower to identify which cardinals should be avoided for being “globalists.” (His answer: Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state.) Amid posts amplifying conspiracy theories about a global “Great Reset” led by the financier Charles Schwab, he responded to the news of Francis’ death by reposting an update from the account of a notorious Italian archbishop: “No Legitimate Pope Will Come Out of This Conclave.”

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The archbishop, Carlo Maria Viganò, is perhaps the most famous crank of the Catholic Church. Like all the most prominent members of his movement, he pushed until he provoked a reaction from the Vatican. Last year, after he announced plans to educate seminarians outside the church hierarchy, the church charged him with schism and excommunicated him. In 2018, he had accused Francis and other senior church leaders of covering up sexual abuse, in an explosive document that Catholic journalists ultimately were not able to corroborate. Since then, he’s posted about a one-world government, New World Order conspiracies, and a deep state in the U.S. in need of Trump’s intervention. But he remains a hero of much of the traditionalist right, perceived as a kind of Q-like oracle for the movement, and his ideas about the conclave have taken root in the online community. More recently, he has asserted that “globalists” maneuvered to oust Pope Benedict XVI and replace him with Francis in service of a “Masonic revolution.”

“The death of Bergoglio crystallizes, so to speak, a situation of widespread illegitimacy,” Viganò wrote on X. “Of the 136 Cardinal electors, 108 were ‘created’ by him; which means that whatever Pope is elected in the upcoming Conclave … will be compromised by having been elected by false cardinals, created by a false Pope.”

To be clear, only a portion of these right-wing priests have latched onto Viganò’s pessimistic view. Many still have hope of a church that finds the “truth” and casts off “confusion,” hoping for a pope who will prioritize “unity”—code words for orthodoxy, as they believe it will make the church whole and stable again. Some saw Francis as an avatar of evil; others, a mistake. Either way, they can pray for a correction.

Unfortunately, I Am Obsessed With Bill Belichick’s 24-Year-Old Girlfriend—and You Should Be Too Why Even Many Liberal Parents Agree With Donald Trump on This One Point I Was Never a Huge Gambler. Then I Started Walking Out of Casinos With $20,000. I Just Watched in Real Time How Trump Is Trying to Manipulate People for His Agenda. It Almost Worked on Me.

Because Francis created all but 25 of the 133 participating cardinals, Burke stands no real chance. Nor does Müller. Sarah’s and Erdő’s chances are relatively thin. It seems more likely, simply based on the math, that the next pope will share some of Francis’ outlook. And yet, conclaves are notoriously hard to predict. There are so many factors that swing decisions: anxieties in individual countries, linguistic barriers, relationships between individual cardinals, performances in specific Vatican jobs, personality traits that rub people the wrong way, and even well-articulated speeches. We can’t really rule out a traditionalist victory.

Regardless of who is chosen, these men will likely have to wait some time to learn what the new pope will really mean for their career prospects. But if a Francis-like successor is chosen, we may see more of these priests break away from the church and find support instead in the embrace of the broader MAGA movement. Until then, they can make their last stand for the future of the Catholic Church the main way they know how: posting their takes for strangers on the internet.

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