Deborah Akinyosoye
Cardinals from five continents held a final mass in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on Wednesday before sealing themselves away to elect a new pope to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
A total of 133 cardinal electors are expected to take part in the conclave, the voting process to pick a successor to Pope Francis, who died last month after a 12-year papacy.
No clear frontrunner has emerged from among the prelates, representing a range of progressive and conservative traditions within the Church and the contest to lead the 2,000-year-old institution appears wide open.
At 3:45 pm they will set off from Santa Marta to gather at the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, where a prayer will be held from 4:30 pm.
They then proceed into the 15th-century Sistine Chapel for the conclave, which is “one of the most secret and mysterious events in the world”, the Vatican said on Tuesday.
– Swear an oath –
Under a ceiling of frescoes painted by Michelangelo, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin — the senior elector — will call on God to give the cardinals “the spirit of intelligence, truth and peace” needed for their task.
Parolin, a frontrunner who was Francis’s number two as secretary of state, will then lead the cardinals in chanting the Latin invocation of the Holy Spirit: “Veni, Creator Spiritus”.
The cardinals have spent days discussing the most pressing challenges facing the Catholic Church and the character traits its new leader needs.
Burning issues include falling priest numbers, the role of women, the Vatican’s troubled balance sheets and how to adapt the Church to the modern world.
Some 80 percent of the cardinals were appointed by Francis — an impulsive, charismatic champion of the downtrodden.
But while interviews in the run-up suggested that some cardinals favour a leader able to protect and develop his legacy, others want a more conservative defender of doctrine.
More than a dozen names are circulating, from Italian Pierbattista Pizzaballa to Hungary’s Peter Erdo and Sri Lanka’s Malcolm Ranjith.
We may never know how close a race it is. Having surrendered mobile phones, the red-robed cardinals will swear an oath to keep the conclave’s secrets.
They also each pledge to “faithfully” serve as pope should they be chosen, before the master of liturgical ceremonies says “Extra omnes” (“Everyone out”).
Once the doors close, the cardinals fill out ballots marked “Eligo in Summum Pontificem” (“I elect as Supreme Pontiff”).
They then carry them, folded, and place them on a silver plate which is used to tip them into an urn, set on a table in front of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment.
The cardinals traditionally cast just one ballot on the first evening, burning the votes along with a chemical that produces black smoke if there is no decision, white for a new pope. Outside, hundreds of the faithful have gathered on St Peter’s Square, all eyes trained on the Sistine Chapel chimney, with news of the first vote expected by early evening Wednesday.