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Posted on 04/17/2005 3:52:49 PM PDT by NYer
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Roman Catholic cardinals started to move into sequestered lodgings Sunday ahead of a momentousconclave to elect the successor to Pope John Paul II.
The 115 eligible cardinals will enter the secretive conclave in the Sistine Chapel Monday with no clear favorite to take over the reins of the 1.1 billion-member Church.
Some of the red-hatted "princes of the church" held publicMasses around a rainswept Rome Sunday, refusing to speculate on the vote and underlining the spiritual nature of their quest.
"People think that we are going to vote like in an election. But this is something completely different. We are going to listen to the Lord and listen to the Holy Spirit,"said Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras.
In the run-up to the historic vote, much media speculation has centered on John Paul's closest aide and arch-ideologue Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, suggesting that the German prelate might head initial balloting.
But many Vatican watchers doubt whether such a figure,whose conservative dogma has polarized the Roman Catholic world, would be able to gain the two-thirds majority needed to become the 264th successor to the first pope, St. Peter.
That could leave the field open to a less divisive candidate who could bridge the numerous factions that have risen up within the largest religious organization in theworld.
The cardinals will hold up to four ballots a day until they reach the necessary majority.
Of the eight 20th century conclaves, none took longer than five days, and two of them were completed on the second day. It took just eight ballots over three days to choose the relatively unknown Karol Wojtyla of Poland as Pope John Paul in1978.
Whereas in past conclaves, the elderly cardinals were forced to live in cramped cells inside a sealed-off SistineChapel, this time around they will sleep in the plush Santa Marta residence, built within the Vatican's manicured gardens.
The cardinals will dine together in the Santa Marta on Sunday night and hold a public Mass Monday morning in St. Peter's Basillica. At 4:30 p.m. (10:30 a.m. EDT) they will file into the Sistine Chapel to start their deliberations.
In the build-up to the vote, some 15 cardinals have been promoted in the press as potential popes, including Italian cardinals Dionigi Tettamanzi and Angelo Scola, Brazil's ClaudioHummes, Nigeria's Francis Arinze and the Honduran Maradiaga.
Among the major issues facing the Church are the growing spiritual poverty of Europe, the material poverty of the third world and the centralized workings of the Vatican bureaucracy.
The cardinals themselves have taken an unusual vow of media silence ahead of the conclave, adding to a sense of uncertainty and intrigue within the male-dominated Church hierarchy.
"It's very hard to know what's going on in the church, we feel that it's a different world from where we are," Sister Emanuel, who works in Australia and is on a retreat in Rome, said as she visited John Paul II's tomb in St. Peter's.
The conclave will be like no other election in the world.
There will be no press briefings after the ballots, no spin doctors promoting their candidates, just a simple puff of smoke from the Sistine chimney -- black smoke for an inconclusive vote and white smoke when a new pope is chosen.
In preparation for an eventual decision, Vatican workershave put up red curtains on the balcony of St Peter's where the new pope will make his first appearance to the world.
In the hours leading to Monday's lock-up, leading Catholics made final public appeals to the cardinals about the sort of pope they wanted to see step onto the balcony.
"Dear brothers, chose someone who will guarantee the freedom and openness of the Church," theologian Hans Kueng, one of the Church's most prominent liberal dissenters, said in anarticle in La Stampa newspaper.
Why oh why don't these liberal idiots who don't agree with Church teachings, simply leave and join those faiths that embrace them!
For two reasons: 1) They get media attention only because they are "Catholics;" if Kung, Curran, and McBrien went to join the dying Episcopal Church (which already has done what they want the Catholic Church to do) they wouldn't get media interviews any more. 2) They hate the Church and want to destroy it from within.
Look at the success of a psuedo-historical novel like "The DaVinci Code" has had on the sheeple. Sad that people are so gullible and intellectually lazy.
And... it'll only take us 33 votes or so to hear him.
Stripped of his license to teach theology in 1979, Hans Kueng is a certified nutburger.
Our priest said something quite enlightening today at Mass. Don't listen to the political pundits and talking heads. They're clueless; they managed to miss the past--what--five American elections. And now they tell us that they know the inner workings of a secretive election from half a world away.
And may I add, tedious beyond belief? He wrote one good book forty years ago or more, on justification, which was good because it was his dissertation and his advisor rode herd on him. It's been downhill ever since until he has just become a human cliche.
Actually, it's neck-and-neck between him and Charles Curran (another fossil dug up recently by the MSM) for the most mindnumbing liberal Catholic. In my whole education, I never threw a book against the wall but once. That was about twenty-five years ago when I read the following sentence in a book of Curran's (its dread banality is burned into my brain): "The modern man is always in search of more reality." That's about the level that Kung operates at these days too.
Just pray that the Cardinals (even though they have done their share of playing politics before they convene) accept the word of the Holy Spirit. I don't worry, debate, compare, or criticize. It is in God's hands now. The sanctity of the decision will be subject to the desire of Holy Spirit, no matter how many human feelings, actions, politics, or crafty games have played out before the pope is elected. Just pray and have faith.
"whose conservative dogma has polarized the Roman Catholic world"
The TRUTH, ie, conservative dogma, has kept the Church faithful to the teachings of Christ for the last 2,000 years. I wish Ratzinger was younger.
Thank you this for all good persons
http://www.corchristi.net/spirit.htm
HOLY SPIRIT PRAYER
for the Cor Christi Trinitate Family
Come to us Holy Spirit as you came to the Apostles
Open all our minds that we may see the
hidden things of God
Send love into our hearts
like a flame of fire
That our lives may be changed
by Your Power
To do God's work on Earth
And bring people with us to heaven
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
O Divine Holy Spirit, Eternal Love of the Father and of the Son, I adore You, I thank You, I love You and I ask pardon for all the times I have grieved You in myself and in my neighbor.
Descend, O Holy Spirit, with the abundance of graces at the Sacred Ordination of Bishops and Priests, at the Consecration of Religious, and at the Confirmation of all the faithful: be light, sanctity and zeal.
To You, O spirit of Truth, I entrust my mind, imagination and memory: enlighten me. Grant that I may know Jesus Christ, the Divine Master and that I may understand His Gospel and the Doctrine of the Church. Increase in me the gift of Wisdom, of Knowledge, of Understanding and of Counsel.
To You, O Sanctifying Spirit, I entrust my will: guide me in the ways of God, sustain me in the observance of His commandments and in the fulfillment of my duties. Grant me the gifts of Fortitude and the Holy Fear of God.
To You, O Life-giving Spirit, I entrust my heart: preserve and increase the Divine life in me. Grant me the gift of Piety. Amen.
Something to say...
Verse of the Day
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
1 Corinthians 15:25-26
http://www.geocities.com/mdj559500/holyspirit.html
be strong good persons
I know I heard that John Paul II changed this rule so the Pope can be elected by a simple majority. Is this article that far off?
Ratzinger reflected JP II's beliefs, JP II was a great unifying Pope, why is it being said this philosophy "polarized the Roman Catholic world"? What a load of liberal nonsense. The Church's teachings on core issues are many hundreds years old. Why would a religion change its core beliefs to satisfy immoral liberals?
Here are the brackets...
I'm rooting for Duke....but Arinze's acceptable too. :) LOL
Yet another example of the media throwing out their opinion that the world is pining for a liberal pope. And liberal doesnt mean "anti-war, help the poor". It means a pope who will pull the rug out from under the church, changing core church dogma that has stood for thousands of years. I other words a radical reformer. And whenever that happens, people lose a little of their awe for the church as an institution and are more likely to thing they can/should steer their own course. Fortunately, none of these journalists get to vote.
Hans Küng is just a whiney old liberal who can't stand he was censured and silenced (as a Catholic theologian) by the Pope for being out of line.
Why doesn't he just become Lutheran and leave the rest of us Catholics alone? I don't know.
He's just a troublemaker.
If 30 votes have taken place and there is still no candidate with a 2/3rds plus one majority, the Conclave may decide whether or not they want to use a simple majority for electing a Pope.
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