Vigil for new Pope begins

Past conclaves had sprung surprises: Pope John Paul II was the first non-Italian to be made pope in five centuries. ‘No one was expecting that, and Pope Francis wasn’t expected to be elected either. People said he was too old, yet the cardinals appointed by Benedict and John Paul II elected Francis.’

Today, 135 cardinals, all under the age of 80, will celebrate a “Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff” in the morning at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome before filing into the Sistine Chapel to start the process of electing a new Pope.

After the Mass, the cardinals will walk into the Sistine Chapel, invoking the Holy Spirit as they chant “Veni Creator Spiritus.” Once inside, each cardinal will take an oath to observe procedures cloaked in extreme secrecy and vote freely for the candidate he believes is worthy to head the Roman Catholic Church comprised of some 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide.

They will go through this arduous ancient process of selecting Christ’s vicar on earth in the Sistine Chapel which is adorned with magnificent frescoes on the ceiling and altar wall painted by the greatest artist of all time, Michelangelo, and other stunning frescoes by Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and other great artists of the Florentine Renaissance.

The cardinals will remain inside the Sistine Chapel, shut off from the world and away from the people gathered at St. Peter’s Square waiting for the smoke coming out of the chimney on the chapel’s roof.

Black smoke would mean no consensus has been reached, and the voting will continue while the world waits, with bated breath, for the white smoke to rise from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney, signifying that a new Pope, the Supreme Pontiff, Bishop of Rome and head of Papal States and the Vatican, has been selected.

The cardinals will be conducting two votes in the morning and two in the afternoon, and this will go on until a two-thirds majority vote for one cardinal is reached.

It could take days before the throng of people in St. Peter’s Square and the world’s Roman Catholics break out in cheers at the sight of white smoke coming out of the chimney.

All 135 cardinals in the conclave, 108 appointed by Francis, are potential candidates, but until a two-thirds majority vote for one of them is reached, no one really knows who the next pope will be.

Various names since Francis’ passing have been mentioned, including the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, the 70-year-old Italian cardinal bishop designated director of the papal conclave.

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, 67, from the Philippines, who led the Vatican’s missionary evangelization, could very well be the first Asian Pope, while Peter Erdo, Budapest’s 72-year-old archbishop who was Council of European Episcopal Conferences head twice, is another contender.

Vatican observers opine that the conclave’s decision won’t really be ideological (progressive versus conservative) or theological as much as who in the conclave would be the most capable of assuming the difficult role of leading the 1.3-billion Catholics of various nationalities and differing viewpoints in the modern world.

“It’s a huge job, and the central factor in determining the right candidate will be administrative,” says Fr. John Wauck, an American Opus Dei priest who studied Renaissance history and literature at Harvard, and philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome where he has lived for 20 years.

Currently professor of literature and the Christian faith at his alma mater, Wauck believes the cardinal electors will be looking for, among other considerations, someone who has run a major diocese “if you’re thinking about the candidate’s capacity to run the Church.” But it could also be someone who is a more prophetic figure, a man of obvious holiness who has been guided by a life of prayer and divine communion.

Does the fact that a majority of electors were appointed cardinal by Pope Francis have a bearing on the conclave’s selection of a new Pope?

Obviously, the College of Cardinals is any pontiff’s legacy, and it is understandable to think that the cardinals a pope had appointed would influence the determination of his successor, yes?

Not necessarily so, says Wauck, “you might think that, but in practice it doesn’t work that way.”

Conclaves in the past had sprung surprises: Pope John Paul II was the first non-Italian to be made pope in five centuries. “No one was expecting that, and Pope Francis wasn’t expected to be elected either,” says Wauck. “People said he was too old; yet the cardinals appointed by Benedict and John Paul II elected Francis.”

In other words, all bets are off. No one knows what really goes on within the conclave and who will be selected until the white smoke wafts above St. Peter’s Square.

Once that happens — “Habemus Papam!” — and may God bless him, His Church, and the people he will be leading in these rambunctious, crisis-ridden times.