Cardinals mull Pope Francis' replacement as Vatican prepares for conclave
Rome — It's been called "holy smoke." And it's color coded.
Black and white plumes puffed from canisters over the weekend as pyrotechnics expert Massimiliano De Sanctis tested the mechanism that will signal the fate of the Catholic Church, and who will be the next man to lead its 1.4 billion followers.
If the smoke that emerges from the chimney at the Sistine Chapel is black, it will mean the 133 cardinal electors inside for the papal conclave will continue voting. When it is white, it means they have elected the heir to St. Peter — and more recently, to Pope Francis.
''Until the election of Pope Benedict XVI, the smoke was carried out in the traditional way," explained De Sanctis, who owns the FD Group Fireworks company. "Ballots were burned to make black smoke and ballots were burned together with wet straw to make white smoke. But the Vatican realized that the smoke was not particularly intense, so it had an electrical control unit designed that controlled the classic pyrotechnic smoke.''
The nine-day mourning period for the late Pope Francis, who died at the age of 88 on April 21 after 12 years leading the Catholic Church, officially came to an end Monday. As that period, known by its Latin name Novemdiales, came to an end, dozens of cardinals, carpenters and pyrotechnics experts were already at work preparing for the conclave to elect Francis' successor.
Vatican firefighters installed the chimney at the Sistine Chapel over the weekend, along with the small stove in which the cardinals will burn their crumpled up ballots after each vote. The voting continues, with one round on the first day of the conclave and then up to four daily until one proves conclusive, with a new pontiff being chosen by a majority of two-thirds plus one of the 133 electors.
Different ideologies at play as cardinals mull next Catholic leader
That secretive process begins Wednesday, with the first vote, but the cardinal electors have already begun descending on Vatican City from across the world. And with them, comes the intrigue of the political campaign-like process of selecting one of their own to lead the church forward.
Some of the believed front-runners among the cardinals would be expected to align with the policies and philosophies of Pope Francis if they were to get the Catholic Church's top job, including newly-minted Swedish Cardinal Anders Arborelius. He told CBS News over the weekend about meeting with many of his fellow cardinals for the first time.
"I must say, I'm surprised that it's so peaceful and such a friendly atmosphere," he said. "If you read the papers, you get the idea that there are two parties fighting for power."
"Of course there are different points of view," acknowledged Arborelius, who is attending his first conclave. "It's natural."
Much like Francis was, Arborelius is a strong supporter of immigrants' rights. He said migrants to Europe have helped to keep Catholicism alive and well on the continent, making them "very important for the church."
"I know there are exceptions, but still, we live in a global time, and it's nearly impossible to stop migration. And we need it also, I mean, in healthcare, care for elderly people, taxi drivers," he said, adding that, "of course, there has to be some kind of order, some kind of harmonious migration and integration" to ensure immigrant populations can thrive.
The Swedish cardinal also hopes Francis' successor will push to integrate women — to a limited degree — more into the church's operations.
"Some people are very eager to have female priests," acknowledged Arborelius. "But we cannot have that. So, it's important to show and to help women to find the positions and the work that they can do in the church."
Asked why he, like Francis, backed more roles for women, but not priesthood, the cardinal said that, "according to our faith, Christ as a man is the icon of what it is to be a priest. Mary is the icon of what a woman can be in the church."
"Of course, nowadays it's not easy to explain that," he said, noting the example of the Lutheran Church in Sweden, which he said now has "more female ministers than male."
"So that's one of our tasks — to show that women have a very important place in the church, but we have to show what they can do and how they can do it. And I think Pope Francis has started this. For instance, now they always say in the Vatican state they have a prime minister who is a sister, Sister Rafaela. And on many issues, for instance I'm also a member of the Council of Economy, we have six ... experts in economy, all women, who help us to clear up the mess of the economy in the Vatican. So, I think there are many important tasks where a woman could do very much in order to help the church in the society of today."
Others among the senior prelates gathering at the Vatican, however, have been openly critical of Francis, including German Cardinal Gerhard Muller, who has been a staunch defender of traditional Catholic doctrine.
"Gay marriage is not possible, it's absolutely against the word of God," he told CBS News, adding that in his view, that impossibility extends to the practice of priests blessing same-sex unions — which Francis green-lighted in a landmark decision almost two years ago.
"We cannot have a blessing in the sense of justifying of a behavior or of a lifestyle which is against the reason God Himself gave," Muller told CBS News, adding that he believes the next pope must bring more clarity to interpreting Catholic doctrine, "I think not only for me, but for all the Catholics in the world."
It's possible that that diversity in viewpoints among the cardinal electors inside the Sistine Chapel could lead to a drawn-out conclave.
In recent times, cardinals have decided on a new pope in just two to three days.
The longest-ever conclave took place during the 13th century, in the nearby city of Viterbo. It lasted for nearly three years, and locals became so frustrated with the dithering that they removed the roof from the building where the cardinals were staying. They eventually elected Pope Gregory X.
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Los Angeles Times
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Letters to the Editor: Readers applaud the return of phonics, but teaching reading shouldn't stop there
To the editor: In 1970, I was a student teacher and then a second-grade teacher in New York. I later became a learning and reading specialist and taught the teachers. Throughout my training, I learned (and subsequently taught) that the most effective way to teach both children and adults to read English is a combination of phonics and whole word recognition instruction ('Could phonics solve California's reading crisis? Inside the push for sweeping changes,' June 2). Roughly 85% of English spelling follows one of multiple recognizable phonics patterns. The remaining 15% of written English words simply have to be memorized or discerned from context. Sadly, at that time, as New York state adopted a balanced language approach to teaching reading, California politicians chose to buy into a whole word-only curriculum that came out of Australia, abandoning the teaching of phonics. The Australian curriculum itself was excellent and actually part of the curriculum we used in New York. Without the phonics component, however, generations of California students have been rowing with one oar. Kudos to California for finally correcting this tragic error. Jane Drucker, Studio City .. To the editor: I had to smile when I read that Gov. Newsom "has pledged his support … to fund teacher training on the new approach' (emphasis mine). It was a "Back to the Future" moment for me. Phonics was one of the tried and true methods that was used to teach reading back in the day (I'm almost 80). Even now, I use it to sound out new words that I come across. For those who are committed to a more holistic approach to teaching reading, I would suggest that one method does not necessarily preclude the other. I would also add that teaching diagramming should be seriously considered as a means of improving reading skills. When my high school Latin teacher realized that most of us in class didn't have a solid grasp of English sentence structure (grammar and syntax), he taught us how to diagram an English sentence and then transferred that new understanding to teach us Latin. I joke to my kids that I had to learn English before I could understand Latin. John Beckman, Chino Hills .. To the editor: As Yogi Berra claimed to have said, 'It's deja vu all over again!' Having taught teachers how to instruct reading and language arts for over 30 years, I've come to several conclusions: 1. Teaching phonics is great and absolutely necessary, but beware of non-phonetic words such as those spelled with 'ough' (tough, bough, ought, through, though). 2. English is a difficult language to learn to read. 3. It's not what you teach, it's how you teach it. Having observed many teachers who said they were teaching phonics, I quickly learned that you can teach it ineffectively. 4. Direct instruction in any reading skill requires step-by-step instruction, modeling and supervised practice. Miss a teaching step and students fail to learn. 5. There is no single effective teaching strategy. We have to use them all. Diana Wolff, Rancho Palos Verdes .. To the editor: I am so happy that phonics will be a focus in California schools again. When I was in second grade in the 1950s, my class spent Tuesday afternoons with a phonics workbook. Then it was a nice change from regular class, but I never imagined how much it would benefit me over the years. I think of those afternoons almost every day and marvel at how much that work continues to help me with spelling and pronunciation. I am a professional writer, and the study of phonics has made me a better one. Mary Daily, Culver City .. To the editor: Here we go again with the pendulum swing. Thirty years ago, I was the director of a state-funded, university-based professional development program for K-12 on teaching reading and literature. At that time, whole language was the prevailing method of teaching reading. Some parents and educators, however, protested that their children could not read, and that kids were not passing reading tests across the U.S. Members of the California State Board of Education implemented phonics and similar skills as the reading curriculum in California. The Los Angeles Unified School District embraced a new reading series that focused on phonics and direct teaching skills. The program I worked for completely overturned our professional development to comply with the new curriculum, but reading scores did not go up much. And now, 30 years later, we are back to where we were. Is it possible that there is no one method to teach today's children how to read? Is it possible that children might learn better if classes were smaller, screens were used educationally and topics in the books were more relevant? Is the pendulum going to keep swinging every 30 years? Anne Sirota, Northridge This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
