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Catholic cardinals from all over the world will converge under Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel on 7 May to begin a conclave, the secret election process to choose the next pope.
The date was confirmed by the Vatican on Monday after cardinals gathered for the first pre-conclave meeting since the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday. The 16th-century Sistine Chapel has been closed to tourists to allow preparations for the election.
The 135 cardinals eligible to vote will be sequestered between the chapel and their lodgings at Casa Santa Marta, the guesthouse where Pope Francis lived during his 12-year papacy, for however long it takes to pick a new pontiff.
German cardinal Reinhard Marx told reporters on Saturday that he expected the conclave would last “just a few days”. But Anders Arborelius, a Swedish cardinal in the running for pope, told reporters before the meeting that voting could take longer “because we don’t know each other”.
Eight in 10 of those eligible to vote in the conclave were appointed by Pope Francis, with 20 only becoming cardinal in December. Francis made a point of selecting cardinals from places where there had never previously been one, such as Myanmar, Haiti and Rwanda. Until this past week, many had never met each other before.
Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, former chief of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, is also optimistic that the conclave will be done and dusted within a few days. In an interview with Corriere della Sera, he described a “good atmosphere” among the cardinals and “a strong feeling of cohesion”.
Bassetti said: “I really think that the conclave can offer a beautiful testimony in this world full of war, division and rancour. Certainly, there may be some difficulty because there have never been so many electors and not everyone knows each other.”
The cardinals visited the tomb of Francis in Santa Maria Maggiore on Sunday afternoon. On the bus during their return to the Vatican, Bassetti said: “There was a beautiful, fraternal atmosphere … we spoke to each other like neighbours.”
The majority of the cardinals with voting power – 53 – are European. They are followed by 23 cardinals from Asia, 18 from Africa, 17 from South America, 16 from North America, four from Central America and four from Oceania. Together, they represent 17 countries.
There is no clear frontrunner for pope, although Luis Antonio Tagle, a reformer from the Philippines, and Pietro Parolin from Italy are among the early favourites.
As conclave fever builds, a video of Tagle, 67, singing John Lennon’s Imagine, emerged on the internet. The clip dates back to 2019 and Tagle can be seen belting out the song with a crucifix behind him. The performance, which has earned him the nickname “Asia’s Bergoglio” in the Italian press, has caused chatter in Rome, and some embarrassment for him.
“Tagle is terrified,” Anselmo Guido Pecorari, an Italian cardinal, told Corriere. “I don’t think he’ll be going out much.”
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Describing how cardinals spent their time in the days before the vote, Pecorari, a conclave veteran, told the newspaper: “We get to know each other other, and suss each other out, before we slowly begin to draw up an identikit of who the next pontiff will be.”
Pecorari said he was among the cardinals who prefered to talk in the more relaxed settings of the restaurants in the area of the Vatican, over a good carbonara, and away from the confines “and prying ears” of Casa Santa.
But not everyone does that, he said, with one cardinal hosting a get-together in his room after dinner, an event that led him to getting a surprise bill after the group emptied the mini-bar.
Pecorari said: “I can’t mention his name because he’s a dear friend of mine, but a foreign cardinal thought the drinks were free … only then he was upset to find them added to the bill.”
