Papal Conclave: Vatican Announces Date for Election by Cardinals
By Lizzy Davies
Cardinals of the Roman Catholic church will enter the Sistine chapel on 12 March to begin the conclave that will elect the 266th pope, the Vatican has announced. Eight days after Benedict XVI became the first pontiff in nearly 600 years to abdicate, a decision that stunned even his closest advisors and sent shockwaves through the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the process of choosing his successor would start on Tuesday afternoon after a mass in St Peter's basilica in the morning. Sitting beneath Michelangelo's frescoes, the 115 red-capped prelates under the age of 80 whose job it is to take part in the election will ballot repeatedly until one man receives two-thirds of the vote. He will then be asked to accept the position and, if he does, will be revealed to the thousands of pilgrims waiting outside in St Peter's square. The chapel, which has been closed to visitors since Tuesday, is having an elevated floor fitted to even out the surface for elderly feet, and its windows covered in order to block out prying eyes. Electronic jammers will block any attempts at communications with the outside world. During the conclave, which is expected to last several days, the cardinals will sleep in a nearby building in which the new pope will also spend his first night as pontiff. On hand will be doctors and priests for confession. The cardinals have made no secret of their desire to have a new pope in time for Easter - not least so they can return to their own dioceses. One German cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, who is in fact based in the Vatican, was quoted as telling Bild newspaper: "I would compare [conclave] with a visit to the dentist- you want to get everything over with quickly." The announcement of a date comes after five days of discussions between most of the world's cardinals aimed at establishing who among them would be best-suited to the job. It was understood to have been the result of a vote at the evening session of meetings. The cardinals also voted to approve the reasons given by cardinal Keith O'Brien and another prelate for staying away from conclave. Ineight sessions of formal meetings known as general congregations, a wide range of issues have been raised, including the governance of the church, its central Roman administration or Curia, and the Vatileaks scandal that dominated Benedict's last year of papacy. During that time the cardinals have also been holding informal meetings over lunch, coffee and dinner that observers say are where many of the most important conversations are had. There is not thought to be an obvious front-runner. In an interview earlier this week with the Italian daily La Stampa, cardinal Donald Wuerl said the relative openness of the pool could result in a conclave that lasts longer than the last one, in 2005, which was over in four ballots and little more than a day. "There doesn't seem to be a cardinal going into the conclave that everybody says is clearly going to be the Pope," he told the paper's Vatican Insider website. "Of course they often say, he who enters as pope comes out as cardinal. So I think it is going to take a little while. How little or how long, that's all in the hands of God." However, according to several reports in the Italian press, the field of candidates has narrowed, with two leading papabili [ITALS] gaining the support of two significant blocks. Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan, was reported to be the "reformist" candidate of those who want to see changes in the way the Roman curia is run, while Odilo Pedro Scherer, the archbishop of Sao Paulo, is tipped as the choice of two heavyweights of the curia, Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State under Benedict XVI, and Angelo Sodano, his predecessor. Both Scola and Scherer are known favourites of the emeritus pope, who will spend the duration of conclave 15 miles from Rome in Castel Gandolfo. But observers stress that, once the cardinals enter the Sistine chapel and are left there, almost anything could happen. In 1978, Polish prelate Karol Jozef Wojtyla was an outsider until he emerged from conclave, three days later, John-Paul II. One of the biggest presences at conclave, the archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, said that for all the reports about a papal transition dominated by the various scandals gripping the church, the past five days had focused on "the big issues" facing the church such as "teaching the faith" and fighting "war, poverty and abortion". "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!," he wrote. He added that, though he was enjoying the "food and wine here in Rome", he had been unable to locate any "Irish brown bread, corned beef or whiskey" with which to celebrate St Patrick's day. Since their open and on the record press briefings were brought to an abrupt halt on Wednesday-ostensibly over fears they were leading to leaks in the Italian press- several US cardinals have kept on blogging and tweeting. And as the Italian newspapers remained full of unattributed, off-the-record reports from within the congregations, Sister Mary Ann Walsh, remarked in her own blog on Thursday: "The leaks at the Vatican continue."
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