CNN
 — 

A remarkable exchange played out on X on Friday as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the government of key ally Germany of “tyranny in disguise” for designating the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as an extremist entity.

In a post Friday afternoon, the top US diplomat slammed the classification made by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, which allows it to increase surveillance of the political party. Vice President JD Vance later echoed the rebuke of the move in his own post on the social media platform.

“Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition,” Rubio wrote on his official State Department X account. “That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.”

“What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes,” he continued.

Rubio, who has been newly tapped as the interim national security adviser, said the US ally “should reverse course.”

In a direct reply on X more than three hours later, the German Foreign Office pushed back.

“This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law,” the account posted. “It is independent courts that will have the final say.”

“We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped,” the foreign office wrote.

Rubio’s post was not the first time a high-level Trump official has spoken out in support of the far-right party, whose leaders have engaged in anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and xenophobic rhetoric, including calling for the mass expulsion of immigrants. One of its key politicians, Björn Höcke, was convicted in 2024 after breaking German laws against uttering Nazi slogans in public.

Vance – who met with the leader of the AfD in Munich in February, ahead of German federal elections – also took to X on Friday afternoon to rebuke the move.

“The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it,” he wrote from his personal X account, quoting the Rubio post.

“The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt—not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment,” he wrote in a post that came after the German government’s reply.

In a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, the US vice president also accused European leaders of turning their back on post-Cold War values and suppressing free speech.

“In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” he said in remarks that shocked and rankled European officials.

According to the Associated Press, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said AfD is a threat to the country’s democratic order.

“It aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, subject them to unconstitutional discrimination, and thus assign them a legally devalued status,” it said. “Specifically, for example, the AfD does not consider German citizens with a migration history from predominantly Muslim countries to be equal members of the German people, as defined ethnically by the party.”

AfD leaders condemned the move, according to the AP.

Rome
CNN
 — 

The pontificate of Pope Francis profoundly shook up the Catholic Church.

His restless 12-year-papacy, with its focus on a “poor church for the poor,” called on Catholicism to leave its comfort zone and pitch its tent among the poorest communities. Francis opened discussions on topics that were once viewed off limits, such as the role of women. He welcomed LGBTQ Catholics as “children of God” and opened the door for remarried divorcees to receive communion. He also generated attention with his strong critiques of economic injustice and calls to protect the environment.

Throughout his papacy, however, Francis faced fierce resistance from small, but noisy, conservative Catholic groups and a certain amount of indifference and silent resistance from bishops in the hierarchy.

Now, as 133 voting members of the College of Cardinals prepare for the conclave, the closed-doors process to elect Francis’ successor, they face a weighty choice: Build on the late pope’s reforms and vision, or slow things down and embark on a course correction.

CNN spoke to multiple cardinals and other church sources for this article. While some cardinals would prefer a safer option who focuses on unity, one who worked closely with Francis said such a choice would be the “kiss of death” for the church.

Those who will process into the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday to begin the process to elect a new pope could not have failed to notice the outpouring of affection for Francis after he died.

When Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, talked warmly about Francis’ vision for the church as he delivered the homily at Francis’ funeral, the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square repeatedly applauded. And in East Timor, which Francis visited in 2024, around 300,000 people attended a Mass for the late pope on the same day as the funeral. All of this has led one retired cardinal to urge his confrères to take note.

“The people of God have already voted at the funerals and called for continuity with Francis,” Cardinal Walter Kasper, 92, a theological adviser to the late pope, told La Repubblica, an Italian daily newspaper.

In other words – read the room.

Francis’ supporters say that only a pope willing to continue what the late pontiff started will do so. But the politics of a papal election process are subtle. Anyone overtly campaigning to be pope immediately disqualifies themselves and the cardinals must vote according to what they discern to be the will of God. Still, that doesn’t mean simply sitting in their rooms and praying for divine inspiration on how to vote.

Each morning during the pre-conclave period the cardinals meet in the Paul VI synod hall for “general congregations.” Then, in the evenings, they often continue the discussions over a plate of pasta and a glass of wine, with several seen eating in trattorias in the Borgo Pio, a village-like quarter near the Vatican.

A fault line is already emerging. Some cardinals want the next pope to follow firmly in Francis’ footsteps and focus on the “diversity” of the universal church, whose axis has shifted away from Europe and the West. Others are calling on the next pope to emphasize “unity” – code for a more predictable, steady-as-she-goes approach.

Austen Ivereigh, a papal biographer and Catholic commentator, puts the two positions this way.

“The first (diversity) sees Francis as the first pope of a new era in the Church, showing us how to evangelize today, and how to hold together our differences in a fruitful way,” he explained.

“The second (unity) sees the Francis era as a disruption, an interruption, that now needs to be reined back by a return to a greater uniformity.”

Those pushing the “unity” line include some of the most vociferous critics of the late pope, such as Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the Vatican’s former doctrine chief who Francis replaced in 2017. Characterizing the last pontificate as a divisive authoritarian, he recently told the New York Times: “All dictators are dividing.”

Most cardinals will not share Müller’s characterization, and cardinals have repeatedly expressed appreciation for Francis’ concern for those at the margins and his ability to connect with people.

But a number of them are rallying around the “unity” slogan and have plenty of criticisms of the last papacy, including his decision to embark on a major, multi-year reform process – the synod – that has opened questions about women’s leadership and how power is exercised in the church.

Some also didn’t like Francis’ full-throated critiques of priests who like to wear elaborate vestments or his offering of blessings to same-sex couples, which has been rejected by some bishops in Africa. The feeling among the “unity” group, which has the support of some retired cardinals, is that the next pope needs less of the disruptive style of Francis.

“His (the pope’s) first duty is to preserve and deepen the unity of the church,” Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, in London, told CNN. Nichols praised Francis’ pastoral gestures, although added: “There probably is a balancing up to do, but that is not primarily to do with arguments or teaching or doctrine.”

The leading “unity” candidate, it would appear, is Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See Secretary of State. He would not represent an obvious break with Francis, but his style would be very different. Parolin is a mild-mannered, thoughtful Italian prelate who oversees the Vatican’s diplomacy, which has included a provisional agreement with China over the appointment of bishops.

But Parolin’s sceptics point to his lack of experience working at the church’s grassroots and his flat delivery of a homily at a Mass for around 200,000 young people in St Peter’s Square, the day after Francis’ funeral. As he read from his notes, the cardinal seemed unable to engage the congregation, in stark contrast to Francis, who frequently spoke off-the-cuff and would often engage in a back and forth with young people.

Parolin has support among the large network of Holy See diplomats, of which he is a member. CNN’s Vatican analyst Elisabetta Pique, who is also a correspondent for La Nacion in Argentina, says that retired Italian cardinal and former diplomat, Beniamino Stella, 83, is considered a strong supporter of Parolin. He is reported to have “stunned” cardinals on April 30 with an attack on the late pope’s moves to give lay people governance roles in the church, saying Francis was wrong to separate ordination as a priest or bishop from the power of church governance. (Francis had appointed the first women to lead Vatican offices and sought to open more lay leadership roles.) Stella’s attack was surprising because he had been a trusted collaborator of Francis.

Others see the unity argument as superficially attractive but having the wrong focus. One of those is Cardinal Michael Czerny, who worked closely with Pope Francis, and has led the Vatican office for human development. He said that unity – while essential – cannot be a program or a policy.

“The terrible danger is, if you make this your obsession, and if you try to promote unity as your primary objective, you end up with uniformity,” he said. “And this is exactly what we don’t need. We spent decades now trying to learn to get beyond uniformity to a true catholicity, a true pluralism.”

Czerny added: “It’s interesting the words (unity and uniformity) are so close, but the difference is huge. I think one is the kiss of death, and the other is life and abundant life.”

Each night during the nine official days of mourning that follow the death of a pope, a cardinal presides at a Mass and has an opportunity to reflect on Francis’ pontificate. It’s harder for cardinals to be openly critical of the late pontiff while others among them are asking in these Masses how the cardinals can build on what Francis started.

“I think of the multiple reform processes of Church life initiated by Pope Francis, which extend beyond religious affiliations,” Cardinal Baldassare Reina, the vicar of Rome, said in a homily this week.

“People recognized him as a universal pastor. These people carry concern in their hearts, and I seem to discern in them a question: What will become of the processes that have begun?”

That need to continue the reforms begun by Francis could favor a candidate such as Cardinal Mario Grech, who leads the synod office, and which has showcased the diversity of the church. The reform-minded German cardinal Reinhard Marx has been among those arguing for a pope who continues in the line of Francis, as has Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, who played a leading role in the synod.

A “diversity” candidate could come from Asia or be closely connected to the church’s frontline missions. In this vein, there is some talk of Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, but he is not the only possibility.

The group of cardinals choosing Francis’ successor is a diverse body drawn from virtually every corner of the globe; during his pontificate Francis dramatically re-shaped the body of cardinals, making appointments to countries that had never had a cardinal before.

But it means that many of them don’t know each other well, and during the discussions in the Paul VI synod hall, the cardinals have been wearing name badges. The intense media interest also seems to have startled cardinals unused to being swarmed by groups of reporters and cameras when they enter or leave the Vatican.

It is much harder to predict how such a diverse body is going to vote. However, it seems the cardinals from the “peripheries,” who represent the shift in the Catholic Church’s axis away from Europe, largely share the late pontiff’s vision and are primarily focused on how the next pope responds to the crises facing the globe.

Charles Bo, the first cardinal from Myanmar, who was appointed by Francis in 2015 and wants to see continuity with Francis’ reforms, told CNN in an email the next pope must “pursue peace without pause” and be a voice of moral authority which “calls humanity back from the edge of destruction.”

“Religions must unite in a common cause to save humanity,” he said. “The world urgently needs a new breath of hope – a synodal journey that chooses life over death, hope over despair. The next pope must be that breath!”

The cardinals entering the Sistine Chapel next week for conclave are not just casting their vote for a new pope, but making a critical decision that will impact the church for years to come.

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CNN
 — 

Marine archaeologists have discovered that two shipwrecks in Costa Rica are the remains of Danish slave ships missing for centuries — a finding that restores the ancestral lineage of an entire Costa Rican community more than 300 years after the vessels’ occupants reached its shores.

The wrecks had long been known to sit in shallow waters off Cahuita National Park, on Costa Rica’s southern Caribbean coast, according to the National Museum of Denmark.

However, for years, they were believed to be pirate ships, the museum said in a news release.

Fisherpeople who established themselves in the area in 1826 thought this because the ships’ remains were dispersed and broken. They believed the two ships might have been engaged in a fight and capsized, Maria Suarez Toro, founder of the local community initiative Ambassadors of the Sea Community Diving Center, told CNN Friday.

The ships’ identities were only called into question in 2015, when American marine archaeologists found yellow bricks in one of the wrecks.

This discovery was significant because yellow bricks were produced in the German town of Flensburg in the 18th and 19th centuries for use in Denmark and its colonies. They were not in fashion in other European countries at the time, according to the museum.

Historical sources had recorded that two Danish slave vessels were shipwrecked off the coast of Central America in 1710: The Fridericus Quartus was set on fire, while the anchor rope of the Christianus Quintus was cut and the ship was swept away.

But the location of the wrecks was not known — until now.

Marine archaeologists from the National Museum and Denmark’s Viking Ship Museum carried out an underwater excavation of the Costa Rica wrecks in 2023, taking wood from one, as well as samples of bricks, and finding several clay pipes.

Researchers at the National Museum and the University of Southern Denmark then carried out scientific analyses that confirmed the historical accounts, the museum noted.

Tree-ring dating revealed that oak wood from one of the wrecks originated from the western part of the Baltic Sea, which encompasses Denmark, northeastern Germany and southern Sweden. The wood was from a tree cut down between 1690 and 1695, according to the museum.

The yellow bricks were measured and found to be the same size as the ones made in Flensburg for the Danish.

The clay used in the bricks was found to be from southern Denmark, either from the small town of Egernsund or from Iller Strand, both of which had large brick-making industries in the 18th century.

The clay pipes were also revealed to be Danish, with their size, shape and designs indicating that they were made just before 1710, when the ships were wrecked.

“The analyses are very convincing and we no longer have any doubts that these are the wrecks of the two Danish slave ships,” said marine archaeologist David Gregory, a research professor and head of the new maritime research center, Njord, at the National Museum of Denmark, in the news release.

“The bricks are Danish and the same goes for the timbers, which are additionally charred and sooty from a fire. This fits perfectly with the historical accounts stating that one of the ships burnt,” he added.

Rebellion and mutiny

Gregory led the excavations alongside marine archaeologist Andreas Kallmeyer Bloch, who is also a curator at the National Museum.

“It’s been a long process and I’ve come close to giving up along the way, but this is undoubtedly the craziest archaeological excavation I’ve yet been part of,” Bloch said in the news release.

“Not only because it matters greatly to the local population, but also because it’s one of the most dramatic shipwrecks in the history of Denmark, and now we know exactly where it happened. This provides two pieces that have been missing from the history of Denmark,” he added.

Bloch told CNN on Friday that the discovery is significant in part because of the “dramatic events involved with (the ships’) journey from Copenhagen to West Africa, and from there to the shores of Cahuita in Costa Rica.”

A rebellion by the enslaved people, a “horrible” navigational mistake and a mutiny by crew members when they arrived at Cahuita are among the events documented in the Danish archives, Bloch said.

The rebellion took place aboard the Fridericus Quartus, which was traveling from Ghana to the Dutch colony of St. Thomas. The uproar, combined with the French and English declaring war, influenced the decision by the Dutch to send the ship with a partner vessel, Toro said.

There were 800 people across the two ships, which got lost because of smog, she said. Instead of going north of a light they saw, which might have been Barbados, they went south, ending up at Costa Rica on March 2.

Fear of pirates and the natives led to two days of arguments between the captains over whether they should go onto the shore to look for food and water. This led to a mutiny among the sailors and the enslaved people — after which around 650 people remained.

The “most dramatic part is the lives that changed due to this event. More than 600 Africans were left on the beach, in what today is Cahuita National Park,” Bloch said.

“The discovery is significant for Danish history, and the fact that we can tie our history to Costa Rica. But it is even more significant for the local population in Costa Rica as it has a direct meaning for the identity of the local people,” he added.

The effort to unravel the identity of the ships and connect it to the identity of the community has been a decade-long project stewarded by a group of youth scuba divers of African and Indigenous origins, said Toro, adding that they feel “pride because they have found their roots.”

The discovery “changes also the story about this region,” she said, adding that it proves Afro-Costa Ricans were in the province of Limon “a hundred years before it was registered in official history.”

The endeavor by the community and the scientists to identify the sunken slave ships appeared in the 2020 television documentary series “Enslaved,” hosted by Samuel L. Jackson.

Celia Ortíz, from the Costa Rican city of Cartago, said her 103-year-old mother is a descendant of Miguel Maroto, one of the enslaved men who disembarked from one of the ships, according to Ambassadors of the Sea. Ortiz said finding her ancestry even late in her mother’s life “brought new light to our lives.”