The conclave to choose Francisco’s successor began on Wednesday in the Vatican, after the confinement of the 133 voters cardinals in the Sistine chapel, while thousands of faithful begin to congregate in the Plaza de San Pedro waiting for the first fumata that will announce whether or not there is a new Pope.
At 17.46 local time, the doors of the Sistine Chapel were closed, after the master of ceremonies, Diego Ravelli, pronounced the phrase “Extra omnes” (“Everyone outside”), with which the conclave began.
Previously, the cardinals gathered in the Pauline chapel for an initial prayer and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of Francisco and one of the greatest favorites to succeed him, who presides over the conclave, went to Latin to the purple to remind them that they must designate the 267 Pope of the history of the Catholic Church.
Then, the voters prosecuted until the nearby Sistine Chapel, crossing the royal room, after the cross that opened the march, in a rite of enormous symbology in the midst of the beautiful fresh of the Vatican.
Already in the Sistine and after singing the “Veni, Creator Spiritus”, anthem of invocation of the Holy Spirit, one by one, the sloping swore to observe the apostolic constitution “Universi Dominici Gregis” for the designation of Pontiff “, in addition to keeping” the secret “about” everything that happens in the place of the election. “
And then the culminating moment of the “extra omnes” for confinement in Sistine came.
In the morning, Cardinal Dean, Giovanni Battista Re, officiated in the Basilica of San Pedro the Mass
-In his homily, Re asked the cardinals “unity” and choose a Pope “to arouse everyone’s consciences” in this “moment of history so difficult and complex.”
“We are here to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit, to implore its light and strength, so that the Pope is chosen that the Church and humanity need at this time in history so difficult and complex,” he said.
The Cardinal Dean reminded the voters that “they prepare for an act of maximum human and ecclesial responsibility” and, before that, “any personal consideration must be abandoned and in the mind and in the heart only the God of Jesus Christ and the good of the Church and of humanity.”
A gesture of Re during Mass has caused a stirafter he went to the Secretary of State, located on his right on the altar, and said, separated from the microphone: “Luck per started” (Auguri … Doppi), between smiles.
The video has run like gunpowder in social networks and Italian media, speculating with possible interpretations: these good wishes can be due to Parolin’s role within the conclave, responsible for directing it, or before the event that it is chosen.
Among the main papables are The powerful Parolin and Cardinal Filipino Luis Antonio Tagle, not forgetting the Swedish Anders Arborelius, the Jesuit Luxembourgs Jean-Claude Hollerich and Maltés Mario Grech, in addition to new names ready to surprise, such as the American Robert Francis Prevost.
