If the Roman Catholic cardinals have not chosen a new Pope before the third day of the conclave next week, then things will not go as planned.
The short conclaves that close in a couple of days project an image of unity and the last thing the cardinals dressed in red will want is to give the impression that they are divided and the church drifting after the death of Pope Francis last month.
“Maximum three days,” said Salvadoran Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez this week before the secret vote, which will begin in the Sistine Chapel on May 7.
The average duration of the last 10 conclaves was 3.2 days and none exceeded five. The last two elections, that of Benedict XVI in 2005 and Francisco’s in 2013, were held in just two days.
The conclave develops along as many voting rounds as necessary until a candidate obtains a two -thirds majority, which triggers the white smoke that tells the world that a new papacy has begun.
“Clearly, the more votes there are, the more difficult things have become. But the signs indicate that they want to proceed quickly,” said Giovanni Vian, professor of Christian history at Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice.
Some of the 133 cardinals that are expected to enter the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday are “papable”, or possible potatoes, for years. Others will go to the fore only of the current daily meetings, known as general congregations, in which the cardinals discuss the future of the Church.
When Francisco died, most of the Vatican’s observers saw Cardinal Italian Pietro Parolin and the prelate Filipino Luis Antonio Tagle as the obvious favorites, with a multitude of other possible candidates following their wake.
The initial vote, the afternoon when the conclave begins, usually serves as an informal resonance box in which numerous names are dispersed.
Some of them are symbolic votes, offered as gestures of respect or friendship before the vote begins, it would be the next day, when you can calibrate the strength of the favorites.
From the second day, two votes are held in the morning and two in the afternoon. According to the regulation of the conclave, if no one has been chosen after the first three days, the cardinals must make a “prayer pause” of a day before continuing.
It will soon be known if there is a viable favorite or if a commitment candidate is necessary.
“If we do not quickly get a new Pope, it will be shown that the pressure in favor of the favorites has declined quickly,” said Reverend Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and commentator of the Vatican.
“It will also reinforce the fact that there are many cardinals and they don’t know each other very well among them,” he added.
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Cardinals await a fast conclave to choose the new Pope under the gaze of Miguel Ángel
Pope Francis named about 80% of the cardinals, many of them in distant dioceses, in his attempt to strengthen the Church in areas where he used to have a limited reach.
This means that it will be the first conclave for the vast majority of the participants and also that many of those who feel under the famous frescoes of Miguel Ángel will have had few opportunities to meet in advance.
This could create a space for the so -called “great voters”, which have appeared discreetly in previous years to promote candidates in meetings prior to conclave and then help shape opinions as the voting contours are outlined.
All cardinals would deny being campaigning for a choice that they believe guided by the Holy Spirit. But although no debate is allowed during voting, the cardinals are free to exchange opinions during meals in Santa Marta, the Vatican residence where the majority will be housed.
According to the historian Vian, voters can identify a commitment candidate capable of collecting votes from all parties.
When the cardinals gathered for their second conclave in 1978 after the sudden death of Pope John Paul I, the Viennese Franz König gathered the German-speaking cardinals and the Polish-American John Krol to the American prelates, to support the little known Polish Karol Wojtyła, who became Pope John Paul II in three days.
With the apparently focused on doctrinal disputes facing the next conclave, German Gerhard Müller has been granting daily interviews in the newspapers gathering the traditionalist ranks, while numerous voices, including that of Canadian Michael Czerny, have been pressing to prevail the moderate vision of Francis.
The cardinals swear to keep secret about the development of the voting, but the detailed stories often come to light later.
In his 2019 book “The election of Pope Francis”, Gerard O’Connell reported how Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentine cardinal who had not been pointed out as “daddable”, monopolized attention thanks to a powerful speech aimed at his peers for the consclave of 2013.
According to O’Connell, 23 cardinals received at least one vote in the first vote, in which Bergoglio was second. He advanced in the second vote and was distant even more in the third, to disgust from the supporters of the Italian favorite, Angelo Scola.
The second day, at lunchtime, the rumor spread that Bergoglio only had a lung and that he might not be in physical conditions to direct the church. Bergoglio informed that he had only removed a small part of a lung and in the fifth vote of that same afternoon he was already Pope.
In 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the clear favorite when entering the Sistine Chapel and was in the lead from the first vote. He won widely in the fourth vote to become Benedict XVI.
Although it is impossible to know how things will go this time, the cardinals expect a similar result and without shocks.
“I would not panic if we don’t have a Pope at the end of the second day, but if there is still no white smoke at the end of the third day, then we started worrying,” Reese said.
With Reuters information.
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