133 cardinal from 70 different countries face a monumental task: Pope selection that can restore credibility and relevance to 2,000 years Catholic Churchespecially among young people.
While the odds of choosing the first asian or African Pontiff or decision-making between conservative and progressive leaders, large, cardinals appear united in their wishes for a leader who can solve this challenge.
It is a high task, given sexual abuse and financial scandals that harmed the church and secular trends in many parts of the world turning from organized religion.
Add the Holy Seen’s wonderful financial situation and often a non-functional bureaucracy, and the job of Pope in 21. century looks almost impossible.
“We need Superman,” said Cardinal William Seng Chye Goh, 67-year-old Archbishop Singapore.
Cardinals will begin trying to find it on Wednesday afternoon, when they “church princes” walk solemnly in Sijna chapel to a meditative singer of “litania saints”. They will take over a secrecy-in-a-frighting vision of heavenly and hell in the past judgment of Michelangelo “, hear the meditation from the older cardinal, then dropped its first ballot.
Assuming no candidate secure two thirds of the majority, or 89 votes, the cardinals will withdraw to the day and return on Thursday. They will have two ballots in the morning, and then two in the afternoon, until the winner is found.
Asked by Cardinal, Goh told reporters that number 1 that the new Pope could spread Catholic faith and “to make the church relevant nowadays, how to show the face of love, joy and hope.”
Pope for the future
But beyond, there are some boundaries in the real world for consideration. The Catholic Church grows in Africa and AsiaAs the baptism of baptism and called in the number of baptisms and the priesthoods and religious orders of women. Decreases in traditional Catholic bastions EuropeWith empty churches and loyal formally leaving the church in places like Germany, many invited to scandals about abuse.
“Asia is mature for evangelizing and harvesting the vocation,” said Rev. Robert Reyes, who studied in the seminary with the Cardinal Luis Antonio taggle, was considered the Philippine Prelate to the first Asian Pope.
But does the pope need to reflect a new face of the Catholic Church and inspire believers, especially in the parts of the world in which the momentum of growth is? Is it important at all?
Papa Francis She was the first Latino American Pope, and the region remains the majority of the world’s Catholics.
Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias, retired Archbishop Mumbai, said the church should become more asian, culturally and spiritually.
“The world’s weight center crosses the Asia,” he said. “Asian church has a lot to give the world.”
At 80, Gracias Won’t Be Participating in the Conclave, But India Has Four Cardinal-Electors, and Overall Asia Counts 23, Making It The Second-Biggest Voting Bloc After Europe, Which Likely 52, Given That One is Not Expected to Participate for Health Reasons).
One of the great geopolitical issues that turned to the cardinals is China and a state of about 12 million Chinese Catholics.
Under Francis, the Vatican was in 2018. In 2018. the disputed agreement with the Beijing managed by bishops, which many conservatives slipped as the sale of subway China’s Catholics, who remained loyal Rome during the decade of communist persecution.
The Vatican defended the agreement as the best job he could get, but it remains to be seen if Francis’s successor to retain policies.
Church in Africa
According to Vatican statistics, Catholics represent 3.3 percent of the population in Asia, but their numbers grow, especially in terms of seminars, such as in Africa, where Catholics are about 20 percent of the population.
Catholics are 64 percent of the population in America, 40 percent of the European population and 26 percent of the population of Oceania, according to Vatican statistics from 2023. year, the last year available.
Cardinal Fridolin Ambono Besung, Archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo, said he was in Rome to choose a Pope for 1.4 billion world Catholics.
“I’m not here for Congo, I’m not here for Africa, I’m here for the Universal Church. It’s our concern, the Universal Church,” he told reporters. “When we’re done, I’ll be back in Kinshas and I’ll go back to my Archbishop of Kinshas hat and the fight continues.”
Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco, Chatty French Archbishop Algeria, Algeria was not enough to meet and never met and never met and never met before and have never met and not met 70 countries in the largest Geographical diversity in history.
Until this week, however, he said that any number of candidates is possible.
“That’s what I call the artichoke heart,” he said. “I tell myself every day,” Ah! Oh my God! We have! “”
The role of the Holy Spirit
For cardinals there is also a belief that leads them to the Holy Spirit.
There is a well-known quote that is then attributed to the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1997. years, in the comments on the Bavarian Television Station.
The future Pope Benedict XVI said that the Holy Spirit acted as a good educator in Konklab, allowing cardinals to choose freely the Pope without dictating a precision candidate.
“Probably the only security he offers is that the thing cannot be completely destroyed,” said Ratzinger allegedly. “There are too many opposite cases of Pups, the Holy Spirit obviously would not choose.”