VATICAN CITY — The 135 cardinals eligible to elect the next pope will enter the Sistine Chapel to begin the conclave May 7, the Vatican announced.
The cardinals will first celebrate the "Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff" in St. Peter's Basilica that morning before processing into the Sistine Chapel that evening.
The Vatican Museums announced that the Sistine Chapel would be closed to visitors beginning April 28 to allow preparations for the conclave to begin. The preparations include the installation of a stove to burn the cardinals' ballots and a chimney on the roof to signal the election results to the world.
The date for the conclave was set during the fifth general congregation meeting of cardinals April 28, Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, told reporters at a briefing later that day. The general congregation meeting was the first after a two-day pause to allow cardinals to participate in the funeral rites for Pope Francis.
More than 180 cardinals attended the April 28 meeting, including over 100 cardinal electors. During the session, about 20 cardinals offered reflections on the state of the church, its mission in the world, the challenges it faces and the qualities needed in the next pope, Bruni said.
Topics addressed included evangelization, interfaith relations and the ongoing need to address clerical sexual abuse, he added.
The cardinals also discussed whether Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who relinquished the rights associated with being a cardinal after he was forced to resign in 2020, would be permitted to participate in the conclave. Bruni said no decision had yet been made, and Cardinal Becciu has been attending the general congregation meetings.
Looking ahead to the next session, Bruni said the general congregation meeting April 29 would open with a reflection by Benedictine Father Donato Ogliari, abbot of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome and a member of the Dicastery for Bishops.
As cardinals entered the Vatican for the morning's session, Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm was asked by reporters if he expected a long conclave. "I think it will be," he said, "because up to now we don't know each other."
Meanwhile, Cardinal Walter Kasper, former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity who is past the age limit to vote in the conclave, told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that he hopes the cardinal-electors "come to a consensus on the next pope very soon, in the footsteps of Francis."
— Justin McLellan, Catholic News Service
Over-80 cardinals still have role to play in choosing next pope
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Over-80 cardinals still have role to play in choosing next pope
VATICAN CITY — When the conclave begins May 7, there will be 117 cardinals who will not be allowed into the Sistine Chapel to take part in the voting process that chooses the next pope.
Because of reforms enacted by Pope Paul VI in 1970, cardinals who are age 80 or over when the pope dies are excluded from the closed-door proceedings.
In addition, a prelate who has retained his title as a cardinal but has lost or forfeited his rights as a cardinal cannot enter the conclave to vote. This is the case as of April 28 with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 76, who was convicted in late 2023 by a Vatican court for financial malfeasance related to when he was substitute for the Vatican Secretariat of State. Pope Francis had asked him in 2020 to resign from his Vatican position and to renounce the rights and privileges of being a cardinal.
Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, told reporters April 28 that Cardinal Becciu's status, presumably including his desire to enter the conclave, was still under discussion by the College of Cardinals as a whole.
But just because these members of the College of Cardinals will not get a chance to step up to the plate and vote for the next pope, it does not mean they are not part of the ballgame.
The over-80 cardinals can be part of the preconclave meetings called general congregations. Those are daily meetings in which the College of Cardinals has been preparing for the conclave, discussing the needs of the church and handling business that must be attended to between popes.
The meetings give all cardinals the chance to speak up about the different issues under discussion. The older, more experienced cardinals may even be sought out to offer advice, opinions or thoughts about what would be best for the future of the church.
The gatherings are important as well for the elder cardinals, who, being retired, do not have an active episcopate.
Setting an age limit on who can attend a conclave is not a form of "punishment" against elder members. Pope Paul instituted the age restrictions out of regard for the older cardinals, to take the burden off them having to make the long trip to Rome.
And having a ceiling on the voting age actually serves a more practical purpose.
Having a precise date for cutting off a cardinal's status as elector helps the pope maintain at all times a consistent number of voters for his successor.
For example, if the next pope knows that by 2030, 20 cardinals will have turned 80 and are no longer eligible to vote, then he will know ahead of time and can prepare to elevate 20 more new cardinals to take their place.
Otherwise, with no age restrictions, a pope would have to wait for a cardinal to die before replacing him, and not knowing when someone will pass away means risking having unexpected losses in the number of cardinal-electors and long periods of time before they are replaced.
The age limit, therefore, keeps conclave numbers steady and predictable, and voters relatively young.
— Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service
Cardinals must choose a pope who can guide, sustain world, cardinal says
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Cardinals must choose a pope who can guide, sustain world, cardinal says
VATICAN CITY — The Catholic Church and all of humanity want guidance and support in a world filled with toil, doubts and contradictions, said Cardinal Baldassare Reina, papal vicar of Rome.
With the death of Pope Francis, leader of the universal church, men and women today are "orphans of a word that guides amid siren songs that flatter the instincts of self-redemption, that breaks loneliness, gathers the marginalized, that does not give in to bullying, and has the courage not to bend the Gospel to the tragic compromises of fear, to complicity with worldly mindsets, to alliances that are blind and deaf to the signs of the Holy Spirit," he said in his homily.
Cardinal Reina celebrated Mass April 28 for the third day of the "novendiali" -- nine days of mourning for the late pope marked by Masses. Thousands of people had gathered in St. Peter's Basilica, including more than 180 cardinals, who are in Rome for a series of private meetings before the conclave begins May 7 to elect a new pope.
Presiding over the Mass, Cardinal Reina said that he was there to "express the prayer and sorrow" of the Diocese of Rome, which has the historic responsibility of being home to the leader of the universal church.
Right now, the diocese and the world's Catholics are without their shepherd, he said, and humanity itself seems like "sheep without a shepherd" given how the world is burning "and few have the courage to proclaim the Gospel by translating it into a vision of a possible and concrete future."
Jesus showed the way with his life and teachings, which is then shared by his disciples, the cardinal said. The way requires deep conversion combined with actions capable of giving life to words with "a caress, an outstretched hand, unarmed speech, without judgment, liberating, not afraid of contact with what is impure."
This service is "necessary to awaken faith, to arouse hope that the evil present in the world will not have the last word, that life is stronger than death." he said.
Jesus understands "the burden on each of us in continuing his mission, especially as we find ourselves looking" for the next pope, he said.
"The scope is immense, and temptations creep in, veiling the only thing that matters: to desire, to seek, to work in expectation of 'a new heaven and a new earth,'" Cardinal Reina said.
As the cardinals meet to discuss and choose Pope Francis' successor, it cannot be a time of "political balancing acts, tactics, caution, a time that panders to the instinct to go backward, or worse, to rivalries and alliances of power," he said. "A radical disposition is needed to enter God's dream entrusted to our poor hands."
The people of God and its pastors are proclaiming a "newness" through Jesus Christ, which means there cannot be "that mental and spiritual laziness that binds us to the forms of God's experience and church practices from the past," he said.
"I am thinking of the multiple processes of reform in the life of the church initiated by Pope Francis," which also go beyond the Catholic world, Cardinal Reina said.
The world saw Pope Francis as "a universal shepherd," he said, and "the barque of Peter" needs to sail on wide open seas that go beyond all boundaries and create "surprises."
The duty of the College of Cardinals "should be to discern and order what has begun, in light of what our mission requires of us, in the direction of a new heaven and a new earth," he said.
They must make the church beautiful for Christ not for "worldly conveniences, guided by ideological pretensions that tear apart the unity of Christ's garments," he said.
Their duty, he said, is to seek a shepherd who: "can handle the fear of loss in the face of the demands of the Gospel"; who "has the gaze of Jesus" and can show God's humanity "in a world that has inhuman traits"; and who "confirms that we must walk together" as people of God made to proclaim the Gospel.
Jesus feels compassion for his people and does not want them to be "a flock without a shepherd," he said, and this now is their prayer.
It is a prayer of "the whole church and of all women and men, who ask to be guided and sustained in the toil of life, amid doubts and contradictions, orphans of a word that guides," he said.
In his homily, Cardinal Reina emphasized that being a servant of God requires giving one's life. "The good shepherd sows with his own death, forgiving his enemies, preferring their salvation, the salvation of all, to his own."
Like the grain of wheat that falls into the ground, they, too, must sow with their lives, he said.
"It is a time of famine," he said. And "the farmer weeps because he knows that this last act is asking him to put his life at risk."
"But God does not abandon his people, he does not leave his shepherds alone," he said. "Our faith holds the promise of a joyful harvest, but it will have to pass through the death of the seed that is our life."
— Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service