Posted on 04/16/2005 9:08:24 PM PDT by Salvation
Thanks,Salvatin for this thread. You sure are brave! I say that becauses there are a number of anti-Catholic posters on FR,sad to say. I'll try and respond as a good Catholic when provoked! Again, I say, I'll try.LOL!
Thank you"Salvation"time do come now be strong good friend!!!
oops! "Salvatin" sorry about that Salvation!
"becauses" = because. I guess it's time for me to go to bed!
Thanks Salvation,I know we have all been praying for the soul to stand in our beloved Holy Father's place and we look to Our Father with our eye on His will and pray to the Holy Spirit as we have done all week as people of prayer.
Same here. Thank God we have a holy and faithful priest who gave a wonderful homily today on the Holy Spirit and the conclave. I was glad my kids heard it. Also, thank God for Mother Angelica's EWTN.
Cardinals ready themselves for papal conclave
VATICAN CITY, April 17 (Reuters) - Roman Catholic cardinals started to move into sequestered lodgings on Sunday ahead of a conclave to elect a new pontiff, with no clear favourite in sight to succeed Pope John Paul II.
The 115 cardinals eligible to vote will all stay in a specially-built residence within the Vatican, dining together on Sunday night before entering their momentous, secretive conclave in the Sistine Chapel on Monday afternoon.
Before being shut off from the outside world, some of the red-hatted "princes of the church" held public Masses around a rainswept Rome on Sunday in which they emphasised 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," Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras said in a homily.
None of the cardinals wanted to talk about who might take over the reins of the 1.1 billion-member Church.
We don't know (who will be pope). Nobody can tell at the moment," said Mexican cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera. "I believe the Holy Spirit already knows, but he hasn't told us yet."
In the run-up to the vote, much media speculation has centred on John Paul's closest aide and arch-ideologue Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, suggesting that the German prelate might head initial balloting. Ratzinger also tops betting Web sites.
But many Vatican watchers doubt whether such a figure, whose conservative dogma has polarised 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.
COMPROMISE
That could leave the field open to a compromise candidate who could bridge the numerous factions that have risen up within the largest religious organisation in the world during John Paul's high-profile 26-year pontificate.
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 in 1978.
The cardinals are due to hold a public Mass on Monday morning in St. Peter's Basilica. At 4:30 p.m. (1430 GMT) 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 Italians Dionigi Tettamanzi and Angelo Scola, Brazil's Claudio Hummes, Nigeria's Francis Arinze and the Honduran Maradiaga.
Before Wojtyla's election Italy had held the papacy for 455 years. Many Italians hope they will now be able to reclaim it and fear that if they do not they may have lost their privileged position for good.
Among the major issues facing the Church are the growing spiritual poverty of Europe, the material poverty of the third world and the centralised workings of the Vatican bureaucracy.
Critics of John Paul said he focused too much power in the hands of the Vatican and smothered theological debate.
MEDIA MUZZLE
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 workers have 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, choose someone who will guarantee the freedom and openness of the Church," Swiss theologian Hans Kueng, one of the Church's most prominent liberal dissenters, said in an article in La Stampa newspaper.
"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," This is why I do write G-D do know person G-D is G-D pray good friend pray Thank you
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/13473fc0-af4d-11d9-bb33-00000e2511c8.html
That's OK. We'll be here in the morning. Actually putting the live thread here might be better than on the regular forum. Guess we;ll have to see.
It's nice to have the facts to check on the general media. In this case they got it right.
Recent Conclaves - The record of recent Conclaves, the last 100 years, shows that the College elects a new Pope on average on the 3rd day in the afternoon, after about 8 ballots.
Pius X, 1903: 4 days, 7 ballots
Benedict XV, 1914: 3 days, 10 ballots
Pius XI, 1922: 5 days 14 ballots
Pius XII, 1939: 2 days, 3 ballots
John XXIII, 1958: 4 days, 11 ballots
Paul VI, 1963: 3 days, 6 ballots
John Paul I, 1978: 2 days, 4 ballots
John Paul II, 1978: 3 days, 8 ballots
This day O Lord,
we stand on your promise
that never will the gates of hell
prevail against your church,
and ask
for your special blessing
upon your servants gathered today
who turn to you in prayer
who await the Spirit's guidance.
Keep their hearts open
as they discuss, choose and weigh
how you would have them choose
the successor of Peter,
enlighten them, heart and mind.
Amen.
Thanks for this.
I do feel 20 April 2005 I do not know good friend
How many votes tomorrow since it's only the first day? There is no morning vote, yes?
I think there is Mass in the morning.
Yes, I think at 10 their time. Then the first vote scheduled for the "afternoon." I want to be watching the news when they are expected to vote so I can see the black or white smoke live.
I might be online but can-not watch live.
I read somewhere that we should expect smoke for afternoon votes at 7 pm Rome time and at noon Rome time for morning votes...7 hours ahead of Eastern Time, 10 hours of pacific time...
You're welcome. Keep the prayers coming.
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