Cardinals prepared for a second day of conclave behind the Vatican’s
walls to elect a pope on Wednesday, with all eyes on a chimney that will
signal when there is a new leader for the world’s 1.2 billion
Catholics.
The 115 cardinals held a first inconclusive vote in the Sistine
Chapel on Tuesday as they began the process of finding a successor to
Benedict XVI, who brought a troubled eight-year papacy to an abrupt end
by resigning last month.
Black smoke billowed into the night air above the Vatican, indicating
that no-one had gained the two-thirds majority needed to become the
266th Roman pope.
White smoke — produced by mixing the smoke from burning ballots with
special flares — would indicate that a new head of the Roman Catholic
Church has been chosen.
As they awaited the outcome of the first vote, suspense mixed with
hopes among the tens of thousands of pilgrims in St Peter’s Square — and
in the Catholic Church worldwide, which is struggling in many parts
with scandals, indifference and conflict.
Among the cardinals Italy’s Angelo Scola, Brazil’s Odilo Scherer and
Canada’s Marc Ouellet — all conservatives like Benedict — are the three
favourites but there is no clear frontrunner and conclaves are
notoriously difficult to predict.
Some analysts suggest that Benedict’s dramatic act — the first papal
resignation in over 700 years — could push the cardinals to take an
equally unusual decision and that an outsider could emerge as a
compromise candidate.
Hopes are high in the Philippines for the popular Archbishop of
Manila, Luis Antonio Tagle, and on the African continent for South
Africa’s Wilfrid Napier, the archbishop of Durban, but in practice their
chances are very slim.
Two-thirds of the cardinals are from Europe and North America and the
view among many experts is that only someone with experience of its
inner workings can reform the scandal-tainted Vatican bureaucracy, the
Roman Curia.
The cardinals on Tuesday filed into the chapel, chanting a Latin hymn
to ask for divine guidance and swearing a solemn oath never to reveal
the secrets of their deliberations on pain of excommunication.
The “Princes of the Church” are cut off from any contact with the
outside world for the duration of the conclave. They eat and sleep in a
Vatican residence where windows are locked shut and phones are for
internal use only.
Modern-day conclaves normally last no more than a few days.
Benedict’s election in 2005 following the death of John Paul II took
just two days.
– ‘Like an orphan’ –
Dressed in their scarlet robes, traditionally symbolising the blood
they are willing to spill in the service of the Church, the cardinals
held a pre-conclave mass in St Peter’s Basilica where they prayed for
unity.
The cardinals burst into thunderous applause when the dean of the
College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano, in his homily thanked the “beloved
and venerable” Benedict — who has kept well away from the run-up to the
conclave.
Pilgrims descended on Rome to attend what is usually an extremely
rare landmark in the history of the Church and millions worldwide were
following the smoke signals from the Vatican with religious devotion or
simple curiosity.
“Without a pope I feel bereft, like an orphan,” said French priest Guillaume Le Floch, 35.
“The Church needs a great leader now more than ever,” he said.
What many cardinals want is a leader who can re-ignite Catholic faith
— particularly among young people — in the way the charismatic John
Paul II did.
At his last Sunday mass before the conclave, US Cardinal Sean
O’Malley said the new pope should “make more visible the love of the
Good Shepherd”.
There have been calls too from within the Church for a rethink of
some basic tenets such as priestly celibacy, the uniform ban on
artificial contraception and even allowing women to be priests as in
other Christian denominations.
The scandal of sexual abuse of children by paedophile priests going
back decades — and the cover-up of their actions by senior prelates —
also cast a long shadow on the Church that the next pope will inherit.
The tradition of holding conclaves — literally “with key” in Latin —
dates back to 1268 when cardinals were locked into the papal palace in
Viterbo near Rome by an angry crowd because they were taking too long to
choose a pope.
Their conclave still dragged on for nearly three years, despite
townspeople tearing off the roof of the palace and feeding them only
bread and water.
The 85-year-old Benedict announced on February 11 that he no longer
had the strength of body and mind to keep up with the modern world.
In a series of emotional farewells, the German-born pope said he
would live “hidden from the world” and wanted only to be “a simple
pilgrim”.
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