ROME. There is something almost disconcerting in how impeccable Rome can be seen on a Sunday in May. The sky is intact, the cobblestones shine as if they had waentled them, and the breeze falls from the gianicolus smells like orange peels and olive leaves. It is a day that seems designed to last more than the account, as if the city would like to postpone the inevitable.
It will be, almost with certainty, the last Sunday of vacant headquarters. Next Wednesday, 133 Cardinals from 70 countries will enter the Sistine Chapel to start voting. If statistics serve as a guide (and do not always do), everything should be resolved in two or three days. Francisco was chosen in the second. Benedict XVI, too. John Paul II needed three. And only one in the modern era, Pius XII in 1939, was chosen on the first full day of scrutiny.
But this time there is a fact that transforms probabilities into assumptions. Of the 133 voters, 108 were created by the same Pope who now rests in the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor, and that – as some murmur – continues to play in this game. It is not illegitimate to think that this will be an election without shocks, almost administrative. As if the new Pontiff was already written and only disagree that the Holy Spirit confirmed it with the formality of the vote.
Outside, tourists advance with their melted ice cream and ridiculous hats. Inside, in the halls of Santa Marta, details with surgical precision are finalized. The rooms were reconditioned, isolated from the outside world: without cell phones, without smart watches, without excuses. On Tuesday the raffle will be done. On Wednesday morning, Mass Pro choosing Pontifice. And then, the closure.
Closing. Word that seems alien until it becomes own: without news, without signals, only the pulse of the liturgical calendar marking the days. Outside, life continues with its minor rites, imperceptible to almost everyone. Some, however, weighs a little more. Three lights on a cake, for example.
Let’s go back. The general congregations of Saturday have been extensive but predictable. There was talk of synodality, fraternity, the role of the curia, the need for a prophetic but practical pope. Francisco documents were cited and thanked him in more than one language.
The Vaticanists, meanwhile, continue with their dance of names, as who mentions horses before a race: Parolin, the Iron diplomat; Zuppi, the shepherd; Hollerich, the polyglota Jesuit who lived in Japan; Grech, the Maltés del Synodo; Aveline, who does not speak Italian. Some with biographies so particular that it seems unlikely that someone has invented them. And there are also covered, for all tastes.
Of course, there are also tensions in the conciliators. Some want to consolidate what was initiated by Francisco. Others, brake. And all, without exception, want the process to be brief. There is no margin for three -year conclaves such as Viterbo in 1271, when they were taken to the roof to feel uncomfortable and decide, or for the 75 days and 83 votes of Benedict XIII, one of the longest under the current standards. Today, if they reach 33 or 34 scrutiny, it is passed to the definition of penalties: the two most voted, in an election to all or nothing. This was established by John Paul II in 1996, in the Apostolic Constitution ‘Universi Dominici Gregis’.
There is something fascinating in this system: a mixture of archaism and pragmatism that only the Catholic Church could sustain without blushing. Everything happens within a fresco by Michelangelo. Everything is decided under the look of the final judgment.
However, the really important thing may not be alone in the choice, but in what happens far from these walls: the direction that the Church will take in a fragmented world, its response to inequality, its way of being – or not – on the margins. Sometimes, it also hides in minimal gestures, like a small voice that sings happy birthday and blows three candles.
Caligaris Marcos Report, special sent to Rome.
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