After five days of meetings, the College of Cardinals has decided to start the conclave to vote the next Pope on Tuesday, March 12.
The conclave date was set last Friday during a vote by the College of Cardinals, who have been meeting all week to discuss the church’s problems and priorities, and the qualities the successor to Pope Benedict XVI must possess.
There doesn’t appear to be a front-runner, and the past week of deliberations has exposed sharp divisions among cardinals about some of the pressing problems facing the church, including governance within the Holy See itself.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pre-conclave meetings had given the cardinals a chance to discuss the “profile, characteristics, qualities and talents” a future pope must have.
Those closed-door deliberations, he said, provided an opportunity for discussion and information-gathering so the cardinals could go into the conclave ready to cast their ballots. “The preparation is absolutely fundamental,” Lombardi said.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston, agreed, noting that without this week’s meetings the conclave “could drag on.”
“The preference is to have enough discussions previous so that when people go to the conclave, they already have a particular idea of who they’re going to vote for,” he told reporters at a briefing earlier this week.
Then it’s a matter of consensus-building in order to reach the two-thirds majority needed to elect a pope — a process that for the past century has taken no more than a few days.
Benedict himself was elected on the fourth round of voting in 2005, a day after the conclave began — one of the fastest papal elections in recent times. His predecessor, John Paul II, was chosen following eight ballots over three days in 1978.
In the past 100 years, no conclave has lasted longer than five days.
On Tuesday, the cardinals will celebrate a Mass for the election of St. Peter’s successor at St. Peter’s Basilica in the morning and in the afternoon they will enter the Sistine Chapel for the conclave, Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s spokesperson, said.
After entering the Sistine Chapel, the cardinals will listen to a meditation on the challenges facing the Roman Catholic Church. The 87-year-old Cardinal Prospero Grech, a member of the Augustinian order, will give the meditation. The cardinal from Malta will then leave the Sistine Chapel before the voting begins since he is not among the cardinal-electors.
Archbishop Emeritus of Cebu Ricardo Cardinal Vidal and Manila Archbishop Emeritus Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales are also not part of the conclave since they are no longer eligible to vote. But both of them will be among several people praying for the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment as the cardinals choose the next Pope.
The Philippines will have only one representative in the conclave: Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle.
The 55-year-old Tagle, the second youngest cardinal, is considered by Vatican analysts a papabile or someone who could become Pope.
The word conclave comes from the Latin word cum clave which means “with key.”
The voting begins on the afternoon of Tuesday (Rome time). On the following days, two ballotings will be held in the morning and another two in the afternoon.
The Pope is elected by two-thirds majority of the cardinal-electors.
Benedict in 2007 changed the conclave rules to keep the two-thirds requirement; Pope John Paul II had decreed that only a simple majority would be needed following 12 days of inconclusive balloting.
By reverting back to a two-thirds vote, Benedict was apparently aiming to ensure a consensus candidate emerges quickly, and to rule out the possibility that cardinals might hold out until the simple majority kicks in to push through their candidate. The decision may prove prescient, given the apparent lack of a front-runner in this conclave.
Deadlock
According to the new rule, if the cardinals are deadlocked after 12 days of balloting, they have to pause for a day of prayer, reflection, and dialogue.
The votation shall be done in secret. After each round of voting, the ballots are burned.
By tradition, a black smoke coming out from the Sistine Chapel’s smokestack means no Pope has been elected yet.
The new successor of Peter is selected once the smoke is white, coupled with the pealing of bells at the St. Peter’s Basilica.
The cardinals last Friday formally agreed to exempt two of their voting-age colleagues from the conclave: Cardinal Julius Darmaatjadja, the emeritus archbishop of Jakarta, who is ill, and Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who resigned last week after admitting to sexual misconduct.
That formality brings the number of cardinal electors to 115, two-thirds of whom — or 77 — must vote for the victor.
Big issues
US Cardinal Timothy Dolan, considered a papal contender, said in a blog post Friday that this week’s preliminary discussions covered preaching and teaching the Catholic faith, tending to Catholic schools and hospitals, protecting families and the unborn, supporting priests “and getting more of them!”
“Those are the `big issues,”’ he wrote. “You may find that hard to believe, since the `word on the street’ is that all we talk about is corruption in the Vatican, sexual abuse, money. Do these topics come up? Yes! Do they dominate? No!”/AP and Reporter Ador Vincent Mayol