With the whole pump, the drama and the solemnity that the Catholic church can bring together, 133 cardinals on Wednesday began with searge rituals to elect a successor to Pope Francis, celebrating a morning mass before opening the most geographically diverse conclave in the story of 2000 years of faith.
The dean of the Cardinal College, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, presided over the service, urging voters to put all personal interests aside and find a pope who prices unit. Today, the world needs a leader who can awaken conscience, he said.
From the altar of the Saint-Pierre basilica, he prayed for the cardinals to agree “on the pope that our time needs”, because he offered a final set of walking orders before entering the Sistine Chapel later Wednesday to start the secret vote.
Originally from 70 countries, the cardinals are kidnapped from the outside world, their mobile phones went and the waves around the Vatican were blocked to prevent all communications until they find a new leader for the church of 1.4 billion members.
Francis appointed 108 of the 133 “Princes of the Church”, choosing many pastors in his image of distant countries such as Mongolia, Sweden and Tonga who had never had a cardinal before.
Its decision to exceed the usual limit of 120 cardinal voters and to include younger people in the “world South” – often marginalized in countries with a lower economic influence – has injected an unusual degree of uncertainty in a process that is always full of mystery and suspense, with smoke signals saying to the world if a pope had been elected or not.
Many cardinals had not met each other before last week and deplored that they needed more time to know each other, raising questions over the duration of the duration for a man to secure the majority of two thirds, or 89 ballots, necessary to become the 267th Pope.
“Wait and see, a little patience, wait and see,” said Cardinal Mario Zenari, the Vatican ambassador to Syria.
A final mass, then “all out”
The cardinals began the day by participating in the Mass of the Saint-Pierre Basilica, which the Vatican officials attended and the public as pilgrims outside brief rain showers to watch procedures on giant television screens. The dean of the 91 -year -old college, prayed for the cardinals to find wisdom, advice and understanding to elect a new worthy shepherd.
Get daily national news
Get the best news of the day, the titles of political, economic and current affairs, delivered in your reception box once a day.
Wearing bright red clothes, the cardinals transformed the central aisle of the basilica while the boys’ choir of the Sirsin chapel sang. They took the seats around the main altar, which is above the traditional burial place in Saint-Pierre, considered the first pope.
Re had chaired Francis’ funeral, providing a sincere sermon on the 12-year-old reforming papacy supervised by Francis, the first Latin American Pope in history.
At 4:30 p.m. (1430 GMT; 10:30 HAE), the cardinals will solemnly walk in the Sistine Chapel, singing the meditative “litany of saints” and the Latin anthem “Veni Creator”, involving the saints and the Holy Spirit to help them choose a pope.
Once there, they undertake to maintain a secret about what is about to sweat and not allow the interference of foreigners to influence their vote.
Standing in front of the vision of the sky and hell of Michelangelo in “The Last Judgment”, each cardinal places his hand on the Gospel and swears to carry out this duty.
The geniality of the chapel frescoes, and that of Michelangelo in particular, is supposed to remind the cardinals the responsibility of the responsibility they have. In his regulations for the conclave, Saint John Paul II wrote that in the Sistine Chapel, “everything is conducive to a conscience of the presence of God”.
After the cardinals were sworn in, a senior cardinal provided meditation. The master of papal liturgical ceremonies, Archbishop Diego Ravelli, calls “Extra Omnes”, Latin for “all out”. Anyone who is not eligible to vote and then leaves and the doors of the chapel close, allowing work to start.
The cardinals do not have to take a first vote on Wednesday, but they are supposed to do so. Assuming that no winning is found, the Vatican said that black smoke could be expected from the sixtine chapel chimney around 7 p.m.
The cardinals retire for the night and return Thursday morning. They can hold up to two voting bulletins in the morning and two in the afternoon until a winner is found.
While the cardinals said this week that they expected a short conclave, it will probably take at least a few voting cycles. For a large part of the last century, it took between three and 14 ballots to find a pope. Jean -Paul I – The Pope who reigned for 33 days in 1978 – was elected to the fourth ballot. His successor, John Paul II, needed eight. Francis was elected the fifth in 2013.
Make lobbying before the conclave
While the cardinals are supposed to resist all the “secular” influences in their choice, such lobbying abounded in Rome in the days preceding the conclave, because various groups recalled the cardinals of what ordinary Catholics want in a leader.
The young Catholics wrote an open letter reminding the cardinals that there is no church without young, women and lay people. The conservative Catholic media have slipped copies of the cardinals of a brilliant book containing their assessors of the contenders. The survivors of the sexual abuse of the clergy warned the cardinals that they would be held responsible if they did not find a leader who would retrose decades of abuse and concealment.
Defenders of the ordination of women sent pink smoke signals to the Vatican to demand that women be authorized to be a priests and to participate in a conclave.
Even the White House was involved, publishing a photo of President Donald Trump disguised as a pope. Trump said it was a joke, but the gesture was denounced by the former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi as “indecent” political interference in matters of faith that returned at times when secular leaders usually exercised religion to stay in power.
Lisette Herrera, a 54 -year -old tourist from the Dominican Republic, was deeply moved to find himself by chance in Rome at the start of the conclave. She decided on Wednesday morning to jump the Spanish steps and the Trevi fountain and to pray instead on Saint-Pierre square.
“I pray to the Holy Spirit for a young pope who would stay with us for a long time,” she said. “I don’t believe in conclave politics, I just think that the Holy Spirit is there and that’s all we need to know.”
Armando Statti, a pilgrim from Crotone, Italy, said that he expected the cardinals to settle on a pope like Francis or Jean-Paul II.
“We hope it will be announced as soon as possible, for the good of the whole world and for peace, and that it will kiss everyone,” he said.
Challenges faced by a new pope
Many challenges are confronted with the new pope and weigh on the cardinals – especially if it is necessary to continue and consolidate Francis’ progressive heritage on the promotion of women, LGBTQ +acceptance, the environment and migrants, or make it go back to try to unify a church which has become more polarized during its pontificate. The clergy’s sexual abuse scandal was hung on the talks before the contractive.
Since Francis chose 80% of the voters, continuity is likely, but the form he could take is uncertain and the identification of horses was a challenge.
But some names continue to appear on lists of “papabile” or cardinals having the qualities to be pope.
– Cardinal Pietro Parolin, 70, an Italian who was the secretary of state of François and Vatican No. 2, is one of the main competitors.
– Cardinal Philippin Luis Tagle, 67, is one of the best candidates to be the first Asian pope in history. He had high level work, at the head of the Vatican evangelization office responsible for the Catholic Church in a large part of the developing world.
– Hungarian cardinal Peter Erdo, 72, the Archbishop of Budapest, is a leading candidate representing the most conservative wing of the church.
–Journalists after Giada Zampano and Vanessa Gera contributed.
