As the Vatican’s College of Cardinals gathers next week to select a new pope, Father Gerald Murray of St. Joseph’s Church in New York City told Newsmax that he expects it will pick someone with “a more traditional view of Catholic doctrine” than the late Pope Francis held.

“That’s going to be the big challenge for the College of Cardinals,” Murray said Wednesday on “Wake Up America.” “My estimation is that they’re going to return to a more John Paul II-, Benedict-style and substance of governance in the church. Pope Francis did many good things, but he also caused a lot of confusion, sad to say, by contradicting John Paul II and Benedict.”

“You mentioned blessing of gay couples, giving communion to divorced and remarried [people],” he continued. “Pope Francis also declared the death penalty immoral, something which Pope Benedict had never done, neither John Paul II. So those are going to be the subjects of discussion at the general meetings of the cardinals, which will begin next Monday after the funeral. We’re in that period now [where] we farewell and pray for the soul of one pope, and then we get ready for the next.”

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