On Day 2 of Papal Conclave, Alliances Should Take Shape
By Jason Horowitz and Anthony Faiola
VATICAN CITY — The men who will elect the next leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics did not come to agreement during two rounds of balloting on a rainy Wednesday morning but will return to the Sistine Chapel after a break to try again. After the first vote on Tuesday evening, traditionally a sort of test case to measure support and float favorite candidates, Wednesday’s balloting was expected to provide an opportunity for alliances to begin to take shape. Black smoke poured from the chapel’s chimney at 11:40 a.m. local time (6:40 a.m. Eastern) signaling that neither of the two morning votes had produced a winner. The 115 voting cardinals then adjourned for lunch and a break, and will reconvene about 4:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m. Eastern). The Rev. Frederico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, told reporters the cardinals may smoke and drink wine at Casa Santa Marta, their residential quarters, during their breaks. More importantly for the political deliberations underway, they are also allowed to talk and visit one another’s rooms. No one bloc of cardinals — organized around passport or priorities — is large enough on its own to generate the two-thirds majority required to push a candidate through. To win, one of the candidates (reported front-runners include Cardinals Angelo Scola of Italy, Marc Ouellet of Canada, and Odilo Pedro Scherer of Brazil) will need to consolidate support from a diverse cross section of the electors. And if consensus remains elusive, the cardinals could look to the less familiar names in their college, which is what happened when John Paul II was chosen in 1978. “Today is the fundamental day,” said Marco Politi, a papal biographer and a veteran Vatican watcher with the newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. “It is a referendum on Scola and whether the papacy will go back to an Italian or cross the Atlantic. For the first time there is a real possibility to have a pope from the Americas.” There could be as many as four ballots on Wednesday. White smoke emanating from the chimney would mean that a successor to Benedict XVI had been chosen. Black smoke in the early evening would mean they are done for the day and will return Thursday morning. “This is an extremely beautiful and intense moment,” Lombardi told reporters after the morning session ended, emphasizing that no pope since Pius XII has been chosen before the fourth ballot. “This is very normal. This is not indicative of any division among the cardinals.” Benedict, now pope emeritus, spent much of Tuesday watching the pre-conclave proceedings on television and secluded in prayer, Lombardi said. In St. Peter’s Square, faithful from many nations sang hymns and glanced frequently toward the six-foot chimney. Some clothed themselves in their national flags, cheerleading for the cardinals from their countries. “Having a Brazilian pope would be better than winning the World Cup,” said Bruno Smania, a 15-year-old high school student from the Brazilian state of Parana, where Scherer spent part of his childhood. “It would be so important us, a sign that Brazil has really arrived.” The sense that the next pope could revitalize the faith in whatever country he hails from was widely held here. Adam Potter, a Pittsburgh-born seminarian and former assistant to Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, was camping out with a group of American and British student priests. He said he’d support any pope, but he hoped for an American. “It’s easy for Americans to feel disconnected from the church,” Potter said. “But if we see [Cardinal Timothy] Dolan or Cardinal Sean O’Malley become pope, I know there would be a powerful feeling of joy in the United States, and I feel that’s exactly what we need.” Conclaves are officially open-ended, but for nearly 200 years, none has lasted more than five days, and most have taken only two or three days. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Benedict XVI, was viewed as a strong front-runner before the last conclave, in 2005. This time around, no candidate has clearly claimed that title. Instead, the focus is on a small group of papabili, or possible popes. In addition to the front-runners, other possibilities are Dolan of New York and O’Malley of Boston, either of whom, if elected, would emerge as the first “superpower” pope. Scola appears to be trending the most among analysts, although observers say his chances could diminish, the longer the conclave lasts. “The shorter it goes, the better the chances for any of the front-runners,” the Rev. Thomas Reese, an analyst for the National Catholic Reporter, said on Tuesday. “Should it go more than two or three days, then all bets are off, and the options for the next pope grow.” If smoke emerges from the chimney shortly after the cardinals resume the conclave Wednesday afternoon, it will be white, and a new pope will soon come to the balcony, introduced with a call of “Habemus papam” — Latin for “We have a pope.” If there is no smoke at that time, the crowd will have to wait until later in the evening, likely around 7:30 p.m. (2:30 p.m. Eastern). By then, a fourth vote will have been held — the last of the day — and the smoke could again be either white or black. Angela Troilo, 77, stood by the obelisk in the center of the square, surrounded by puddles and looking up at the chimney. “The church used to do so much!” Troilo said, describing herself as a poor working woman who had been let down by her country and needed her church. “The Italian government is dead and buried. We need someone with energy, who can command!” Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Nigeria, in an interview before the conclave, said the next pope, like any individual, “will come with his own baggage, his own background, competence, training, spiritual attitudes” — and will find that guiding the church can be more complicated than governing a single country. “As a nation, the church is a universal association,” Onaiyekan said. “The church is spread all over the world. . . . And each distinct part of the church, according to God’s will, is headed by bishops whose job it is to face the realities around them and use them to defend the principles of the church and move the church forward.” Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster agreed. “The challenges are in some ways quite startling,” he said. “There is such cultural change going on around the world, and such shifts of paradigm.” Before their first journey Tuesday to the Sistine Chapel, the cardinals celebrated a Mass dedicated to the pope’s election. Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, delivered the homily, emphasizing the need for a good pastor and a strong commitment to evangelization. “In the wake of this service of love toward the church and toward all of humanity, the last popes have been builders of so many good initiatives for people and for the international community, tirelessly promoting justice and peace,” said Sodano, who is past 80 and therefore not eligible to participate in the conclave. “Let us pray that the future pope may continue this unceasing work on the world level. . . . Let us pray that the Lord will grant us a pontiff who will embrace this noble mission with a generous heart.”
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