VATICAN CITY (AP) — A conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis will begin on Wednesday, May 7, the Vatican announced Monday.
The date of the conclave was chief on the agenda of cardinals holding informal meetings to hash out church business following the April 21 death of Pope Francis. They held off on announcing the opening of the conclave until after his funeral on Saturday.
The Vatican said more than 180 participated in the fifth informal meeting in Rome on Monday. A smaller group of 135, known as the College of Cardinals, is eligible to elect a new pope.
Cardinals arriving for the first day of informal meetings after Pope Francis’ funeral were swarmed at the city-state’s gates by journalists eager for hints of whether any consensus was building around the election of a successor.
In a chaotic scene, journalists shouted out questions about the mood inside, whether there was unity, and when the conclave would begin. A reporter for a satirical Italian television program repeatedly asked whether an Italian cardinal who has been convicted by the Vatican criminal court on finance-related charges would be allowed to vote.
“There is the hope of unity,” said Argentine Cardinal Ángel Sixto Rossi, the 66-year-old archbishop of Cordoba who was made a cardinal by Francis in 2023.
British Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the 79-year-old archbishop of Westminster, was also adamant that the church must strive for unity, and he downplayed divisions among the cardinals.
“The role of the pope is to essentially hold us together, and that’s the grace we’ve been given from God,” said Nichols.
Venezuelan Cardinal Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo expressed confidence that once the conclave begins, a decision would be quick, “between two and three days.”
Cardinal electors
The College of Cardinals that will elect a new pope includes members from far-flung corners of the globe whom Francis named over his 12-year papacy to bring in new points of views of the Catholic Church hierarchy. Many have spent little or no time in Rome getting to know their colleagues, injecting some uncertainty into a process that requires two-thirds of the voting-age cardinals to coalesce behind a single candidate.
Nichols acknowledged that the 135 cardinal electors — 108 of whom were appointed by Francis — don’t know each other very well. The last 20 were appointed in early December.
“We’ve got all week,” Nichols said as he arrived Monday.
Only cardinals under 80 are eligible to vote, and it is not clear how many of the 135 will participate. A Spanish cardinal has already said he won’t come to Rome for health reasons.
A big uncertainty is whether Cardinal Angelo Becciu, once one of the most powerful cardinals in the Vatican, will be allowed in the Sistine Chapel. In 2020, Francis forced Becciu to resign as head of the Vatican’s saint-making office and renounce his rights as a cardinal because of allegations of embezzlement and financial fraud. Becciu denied any wrongdoing but was put on trial in the Vatican criminal court and convicted of finance-related charges in December 2023.
He is appealing the conviction and has participated in the pre-conclave meetings, but there is a lingering question about whether he is entitled to vote. The Vatican’s official statistics list him as a “non-elector.” When he was ousted in 2020, Becciu told a hastily arranged press conference that he wouldn’t be voting in any future conclave, but recently, he has insisted he is entitled to vote, and canon lawyers have been poring over the Vatican document regulating the conclave to determine if he’s right.
Papal candidates
While Francis stacked the ranks with his cardinals, it is not necessarily the case that all of them will want to see the church continue in his image.
On Monday morning, any glimpse of a red cap appearing along St. Peter’s Square’s stately colonnade set journalists running with cameras and voice recorders aloft to capture the mood inside, however fleeting.
Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, considered a contender to be the next pope, navigated the scrum of converging journalists with humor, but didn’t give anything away. He joked that he was “holding his breath” as the microphones and cameras surrounded him all the way to the Vatican gate.
African voices
Nigerian Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, the emeritus archbishop of Abuja, was asked if the African cardinals were coalescing around a particular candidate.
“We have not come here for a political rally. We have come to get a pope out,” said Onaiyekan, who at 81 is too old to vote but can have a role in influencing how younger electors might.
Asian and Latin American voices
Indian Cardinal Anthony Poola, the 61-year-old archbishop of Hyderabad, said he had experienced a sense of unity among his fellow cardinals but allowed that “anything could happen.” As a relatively young cardinal, Poola is one of four Indian electors who will participate in the conclave, three of whom, including Poola, were named by Francis.
“Anyone who is coming up must be the successor of St. Peter, and we all hope that he will be a good pope,” he said.
Rossi, the Argentine cardinal, said he hoped that Francis’ message of “mercy, closeness, charity, tenderness and faith,” would accompany them in finding a successor.
But he acknowledged the job was daunting. Asked how he felt about participating in his first conclave, he responded with a laugh: “Afraid.”
