The Vatican is moving quickly to
start the process of selecting the next pope, announcing Friday that the
official invitation had gone out to the 115 eligible cardinals who will take
part in selecting the next pope.
The Vatican said that
"congregations" leading up to the actual conclave will start Monday.
The short announcement from the
Vatican press office Friday said that cardinals would join the congregations as
they arrived in Rome and that once the full contingent of cardinals arrived
they would decide together on the start date for the conclave.
Benedict XVI, now known as pontiff
emeritus, sent shockwaves around the world when he announced Feb. 11 he would
resign, effective Thursday at 8 p.m. local time. Friday will be his first full
day in his new temporary home in Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, where he will
live for several months until a new residence being prepared for him is ready
inside the Vatican.
Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, the
pontiff emeritus' secretary, reported to the Vatican Friday that the former
pope spent his first hours in Castel Gandolfo eating dinner, walking in the
palace gardens and watching television news coverage of his departure. He
celebrated mass Friday morning, Gaenswein said. Gaenswein also reported that
Benedict has restarted playing the piano, one of the passions of his youth
This process to select the next pope
is already in stark contrast to previous modern conclaves, when a specific date
for the start of conclave was announced, usually within about 15 days of the death
of the pope. This one is different because Benedict XVI resigned, meaning work
on the conclave could start behind the scenes while Benedict was still pontiff.
In fact, in his final days Benedict changed the rules to allow the conclave to
start sooner than it would otherwise.
Thursday evening at a press
conference in Rome, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, a past president of the
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and an elector in the 2005 conclave that
picked Benedict, said the cardinals will spend the days before the conclave in
"smaller, more intimate conversations."
According to Catholic News Service,
these private talks are "where the cardinals ask each other about specific
cardinals they know or want to know more about. He said they ask questions
like, 'What do you know about this candidate? And could you tell me how he
would react to this? And what sort of person is he, what's his
personality?'"
The Italian newspaper Il
Messaggero reported that around three dozen cardinals were in town to see Benedict
off on Thursday, and so assumptions are that congregations will start with at
least that many cardinals on Monday. But it is too early to tell how long it
will take for the remaining cardinals to arrive.
Once the conclave starts it will
also be the first conclave in 719 years to take place with the previous pope
still alive, when Celestine V, who, like Benedict, resigned voluntarily,
witnessed the installation of Boniface VII in 1294. Gregory XII was the last
pope to resign, when he was forced to abdicate in 1415. But he died before the
election of his successor Martin V.
There are 117 cardinals eligible to
vote to select the next pope (only cardinals younger than 80 can vote), but two
will not make the trip: Cardinal Julius Darmaatmadja of Indonesia, who is
physically unable to travel, and Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien, who has said
he will not make the trip in order to avoid diverting attention from the
conclave. O'Brien has denied allegations that he had "inappropriate"
relations with priests in the 1980s.
The allegations against O'Brien are
part of a long series of potential scandals that have emerged in recent weeks
and that will be among the first issues that must be confronted by the next
pope. Reports of a secret investigation into an alleged network of gay clergy
working in the Vatican surfaced in Benedict's last week as pope. The results of
the investigation have been sealed until the next pope is elected.
Additionally, the Vatican bank has
been charged with money laundering. Other potential problems for the next pope
include the hidden information about Benedict's declining health over the last
year, controversy related to leaked Vatican documents dubbed
"Vatileaks"and charges of cover-ups related to pedophile priest
scandals. The Italian media has begun to describe the collective weight of the
scandals as the "116th Cardinal" who will be in the conclave when the
voting actually begins.
Cardinal Turkson of Ghana is the current
oddsmakers' favorite to become the next pope. Election posters for Cardinal
Turkson started appearing around Rome on Friday. It is not clear who put
Pope Benedict XVI waves to the crowd
from a balcony at Castel Gandolfo, Italy. The pontiff became the first
pope in 600 years to retire as leader of the Catholic Church. Vincenzo
Pinto, AFP/Getty Imag
