Latest news with #JoshuaMcElwee
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Cardinals enter seclusion ahead of secret conclave to elect new pope
By Joshua McElwee and Crispian Balmer VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Cardinals who will take part in the secret conclave to elect a new Catholic pope began checking into two Vatican hotels on Tuesday, where they will be barred from contact with the outside world as they decide who should succeed Pope Francis. The conclave will start behind the closed doors of the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday afternoon, with all cardinals under the age of 80 able to vote on who should be the next leader of the 1.4-billion-member Church. The race to succeed Francis, who died last month, is seen as wide open. Although a few names have been cited as possible front-runners, several of the 133 cardinals expected to vote in the conclave have said they do not know who will become the next pope. "I have no guess," Cardinal Robert McElroy said during a visit to a parish in Rome on Monday evening. The conclave process is "profound and mysterious," said McElroy, the archbishop of Washington, D.C. "I can give you no insights into who is ahead," he said. Some cardinals are looking for a new pope who will continue with Francis' push for a more transparent, welcoming Church, while others are seeking retrenchment to more traditional roots that put a premium on doctrine. Conclaves are often spread out over several days, with multiple votes held before a contender wins the necessary three-quarters majority to become pope. During the conclave period, the voting cardinals will stay in two Vatican guesthouses and take an oath to remain out of contact with anyone not participating in the secret vote. Francis had a priority of appointing cardinals from countries that had never had them before, such as Haiti, South Sudan and Myanmar. This conclave will be the most geographically diverse in the Church's 2,000-year history, with clerics from 70 countries taking part. Japanese Cardinal Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi told La Repubblica newspaper that many of the 23 cardinals from Asia voting in the conclave planned to vote as a block. He contrasted their strategy with that of the 53 cardinals from Europe, who are known to vote in terms of individual countries or other personal preferences. "We Asians are probably more unanimous in supporting one or two candidates ... we will see which name will come out as the leading candidate," said Kikuchi. (Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Will Catholic cardinals pick another outsider like Francis to be pope?
By Joshua McElwee VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - When Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected in 2013 as Pope Francis, he was a near total Vatican outsider. He had never been a Vatican official, instead spending decades in local ministry. And he came from Argentina, the first pope from the Americas. As the world's Catholic cardinals meet this week to discuss who should succeed Francis, the deliberations may boil down to a simple choice: Do they want another outsider? Or is it time now for an insider, someone more familiar with the Vatican's arcane ways of operating? "Pope Francis... shifted the Church's attention to the outside world," said John Thavis, former Rome bureau chief for the Catholic News Service, who covered three papacies. "Some cardinals will now be tempted to pick an insider, someone with the skills to manage church affairs more carefully and quietly than Francis did." Francis, who died on April 21 aged 88, focused much of his papacy on outreach to places where the Church was not traditionally strong. Many of his 47 foreign trips were to countries with small Catholic populations, such as South Sudan, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, and he was especially committed to Catholic-Muslim dialogue. He was also known for giving freewheeling press conferences, where no topics were off the table and the pope might respond to a query with an unexpected quip. Asked about the Catholic ban on birth control in 2015, Francis reaffirmed the ban but added that Catholics don't have to have children "like rabbits". The late pope's unusually open style attracted criticism from some Catholics, but also global interest. His funeral on Saturday and a procession through Rome to his burial place at the Basilica of St. Mary Major attracted crowds estimated at more than 400,000. German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, one of the leading Catholic prelates in Europe and once a senior adviser to Francis, said the cardinals who will meet in a secret conclave to elect his successor would not be looking for a "functionary". "We do not need a manager," Marx told reporters. "What's essential is that it be a courageous person... People around the world need to be comforted, lifted up." Other cardinals are expressing sharp disagreement. "We need to give the Church back to the Catholics," Italian Cardinal Camillo Ruini told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. Ruini, who is 94 and too old to enter the conclave, said Francis sometimes appeared to favour those who were distant from the Church, "at the expense" of devout faithful. Others argue that it is precisely a more managerial pope that is needed at this time to tackle the Church's financial woes, which include a widening budget shortfall and growing liabilities for its pension fund. CARDINALS' SPEECHES The cardinals are meeting daily this week to discuss general issues facing the 1.4-billion-member Church before those under the age of 80 enter the conclave on May 7. As they meet in what are called "general congregations," individual prelates can offer speeches to give their vision for the future of the global faith. In 2013, Bergoglio, then archbishop of Buenos Aires, offered a short reflection at one such meeting, saying the Church needed to do a better job of opening itself up to the modern world. This, by many accounts, proved decisive for his election. "Bergoglio gave the speech which led the cardinals to believe that the Holy Spirit had made its choice," said Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of Francis who also wrote a book with the pope in 2020. "The choice that (Bergoglio) gave them, and the proposal for what the next pope should do, just struck them very, very forcefully," said Ivereigh. It remains to be seen whether any cardinal can give such a compelling speech this week. Francis made a priority of appointing cardinals from countries that had never had them, such as Myanmar, Haiti and Rwanda, and many of the roughly 135 cardinals expected to enter the conclave do not know each other well. They may be looking at Francis as a model and choose another outsider. Or they may look at Francis' own predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI - a consummate insider who worked as a senior Vatican official for nearly two decades before becoming pontiff. Thavis said he thought the large crowds who came to mourn Francis might affect the cardinals' decision. "The cardinals witnessed an outpouring of love and respect for Francis," he said. "It's one more reason why the ability to connect with people will weigh more than managerial skills as they make their choice."
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Royalty and presidents to join multitude of mourners at Pope Francis' funeral
By Joshua McElwee, Crispian Balmer and Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Royalty, presidents, prime ministers and a legion of faithful will pay their last respects to Pope Francis on Saturday at a funeral Mass in St. Peter's Square to honour his sometimes turbulent papacy. Among those attending from more than 150 countries will be U.S. President Donald Trump, who clashed with Francis on numerous occasions over their starkly contrasting positions on immigration. The Argentine pope died on Monday, aged 88, following a stroke, ushering in a meticulously planned period of transition for the 1.4-billion member Roman Catholic Church, marked by ancient ritual, pomp and mourning. Over the past three days, around 250,000 people filed past his body, which had been laid out in a coffin before the altar of the cavernous, 16th century St. Peter's Basilica. His casket will be carried through the main doors on Saturday for the outdoor funeral, which starts at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT), with massed ranks of foreign dignitaries to one side of the stone colonnade, facing hundreds of red-hated cardinals on opposite banks of seats. Alongside Trump will be the presidents of Argentina, France, Gabon, Germany, Italy, the Philippines, Poland and Ukraine, together with the prime ministers of Britain and New Zealand, and many European royals. The Vatican says some 250,000 mourners will fill the vast, cobbled esplanade and main access route to the basilica to follow the ceremony, which will be presided over by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, a 91-year-old Italian prelate. The first non-European pope for almost 13 centuries, Francis battled to reshape the Roman Catholic Church during his 12-year reign, siding with the poor and marginalised, while challenging wealthy nations to help migrants and reverse climate change. "Francis left everyone a wonderful testimony of humanity, of a holy life and of universal fatherhood," said a formal summary of his papacy, written in Latin, and placed next to his body. Traditionalists pushed back at his efforts to make the Church more transparent, while his pleas for an end to conflict, divisions and rampant capitalism often fell on deaf ears. BREAK WITH TRADITION The pope shunned much of the pomp and privilege usually associated with the papacy during his reign, and will carry that desire for greater simplicity into his funeral, having re-written the elaborate, book-long funeral rites used previously. Whereas Pope John Paul II's funeral in 2005 lasted three hours, the service on Saturday is due to take 90 minutes. Francis also opted to forego a centuries-old practice of burying popes in three interlocking caskets made of cypress, lead and oak. Instead, he has been placed in a single, zinc-lined wooden coffin, which was sealed closed over night. In a further break with tradition, he will be the first pope to be buried outside the Vatican in more than a century, preferring Rome's Basilica of St. Mary Major, some 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) from St. Peter's, as his final resting place. His tomb has just "Franciscus", his name in Latin, inscribed on the top. A reproduction of the simple, iron-plated cross he used to wear around his neck hangs above the marble slab. His funeral motorcade will drive him through the city for one last time, allowing Romans to say their farewell. Italy has closed the airspace over the city and called in extra forces, with anti-aircraft missiles and patrol boats guarding the event in one of the biggest security operations the country has seen since the funeral of John Paul II. As soon as Francis is buried, attention will switch to who might succeed him. The secretive conclave to elect a successor is unlikely to begin before May 6, and might not start for several days after that, giving cardinals time to hold regular meetings beforehand to sum each other up and assess the state of the Church, beset by financial problems and ideological divisions. (Writing by Crispian Balmer, editing by Gavin Jones and Diane Craft)
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
St. Peter's Basilica reopens to faithful bidding farewell to pope
By Joshua McElwee VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - St. Peter's Basilica reopened its doors on Thursday, after a brief pause in the early hours of the day, to welcome thousands of worshippers from around the world who want to pay their final respects to Pope Francis. Almost 50,000 people have flooded the basilica to pay homage to the late pontiff, laid out since Wednesday in an open coffin ahead of his funeral on Saturday, Vatican media said. Given the size of the crowds, the church, which was initially scheduled to close at midnight, was kept open until 5:30 a.m. (03:30 GMT), before it reopened at 7 a.m. The body of the 88-year-old pope, who died on Monday in his rooms at the Vatican's Santa Marta guesthouse after suffering a stroke, was brought to St. Peter's in a solemn procession on Wednesday. Francis, a groundbreaking reformer, had an often turbulent 12-year reign in which he repeatedly clashed with traditionalists and championed the poor and marginalised. On Saturday, over 170 delegations including heads of state and government are expected in St. Peter's Square for the funeral ceremony, with millions more watching on television across the globe. "A chapter in the Church's history has been closed," Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller told Italian daily la Repubblica in an interview published on Thursday. The German cardinal, known to be a conservative and one of the 133 princes of the church expected to hold a conclave next month to elect the Church's 267th pontiff and successor to Francis, said that there was "unanimous appreciation" for the pope's work on migrants and the poor.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Who will be the next pope? Some hints to watch for
By Joshua McElwee VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - No one knows who the world's Catholic cardinals will choose to succeed Pope Francis as the new leader of the global Catholic Church. But for those watching attentively, there are sometimes hints about who might emerge as the next pontiff. The process to choose a new pope is long and secretive. Most of the world's 252 cardinals are coming to Rome to take part. Those under the age of 80, about 135 prelates, are preparing to enter into a conclave to elect the next pontiff. Once it starts, which by Church law should be no earlier than May 6, the cardinals will be completely shut off from the modern world until a new pope is named. In the meantime, they can attend public events and give interviews about what they are looking for in the next leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. "Reading the pre-conclave signs to identify papal candidates is tricky, because the signs are usually very subtle," said John Thavis, a Vatican correspondent who covered three papacies. Francis died on Monday aged 88. There is no clear frontrunner to succeed him. As the pope was recovering from pneumonia over the Easter weekend, he asked retired cardinals over the age of 80 to preside in his place at the Vatican's various celebrations of the holiday, possibly because he did not want to signal any favourite successor. The pope's funeral, on Saturday, April 26, will be the first big moment to watch for signs of who might be next. Tens of thousands, including dozens of world leaders such as U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, are expected in St. Peter's Square for the ceremony. Millions more will be watching across the globe. The cardinals attending will listen closely to the sermon given by Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the ceremonial leader of the College of Cardinals and a retired Vatican official. At the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005, the sermon was delivered by German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who offered what many thought was a stirring elocution on the late pope's life and legacy. Eleven days later, Ratzinger would be elected as Pope Benedict XVI. Re is 91 years old, cannot enter the conclave and is not a papal contender. But insiders expect he might still try to offer a guide for his confreres to follow in the way he chooses to describe Francis' papacy, or in any words he uses to describe the needs of the Catholic Church today. HINTS EMERGING SLOWLY The papal funeral marks the first of nine days of mourning for the global Church. Another Mass of mourning will be held in St. Peter's Square on Sunday. That will be led by Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, often cited as a leading papal contender. "The cliche … is he who enters the conclave a pope leaves a cardinal," said Christopher Bellitto, an historian at Kean University in New Jersey who specializes on the Church. "Only prophets know what is going to happen." Other hints for possible successors to Francis will likely come out more slowly. In 2013, as the cardinals gathered in Rome after Benedict's surprise resignation, some of the U.S. prelates preparing to take part in the conclave started giving press conferences. The wider group of the world's cardinals later asked them to stop doing the briefings. Even if there are no press conferences this time, cardinals spending time in Rome often celebrate Masses at churches across the city. The sermons they offer on those occasions could give indications of what they are thinking. "Any signs will come in bits and pieces, or phrases used to describe what cardinals are looking for in the next pope," said Thavis. "Words like 'openness' and 'reform' may fit certain cardinals, while 'administrative skills' and 'solid theology' may describe others," he said. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS The biggest hints will come in the daily meetings the cardinals have in the week leading up to the conclave. In these meetings, known as "general congregations", the cardinals have an opportunity to speak freely and even, perhaps, to offer a vision for a future papacy under their own leadership. In 2013, Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio offered a short reflection at one of those meetings. He said the Church, beset by sexual abuse and financial scandals, had become "sick" and too "self-referential", according to a text that was later published. He said the Church needed to do a better job of trying to open itself up to the modern world. A few days later, Bergoglio would be elected as Pope Francis. The final deliberations about who should follow Francis will take place in conclave. The cardinals who enter the Sistine Chapel to vote will be sealed off from the world, forbidden from reading newspapers or speaking with the outside world. As they enter their deliberations, Archbishop Diego Ravelli, who leads the Vatican's liturgical celebrations, will shout, in Latin, "Extra omnes!" (Everyone out!)
