The consultations to find a successor to Pope Francis continue at the Vatican. The cardinals began their ninth day of “general congregations” on Saturday, these closed -door meetings before the conclave that will start on Wednesday.
Fear the crowd of pilgrims and journalists, part of the cardinals arrived on foot, shortly before 9 am, for these meetings organized in the Vatican Paul VI room, where voters and non-electors exchange on the priority themes of the Church.
Friday more than 180 cardinals were present at these morning meetings, including more than 120 voters under the age of 80. They will be 133 voters to lock themselves on May 7 in the Sistine Chapel, for a conclave from which they will only emerge once an elected pope, by a majority of two thirds.
Many expect a short conclave, but the duration is obviously unknown: “We do not know, we are waiting for the Lord to tell us,” the Archbishop of Singapore William Seng Chye Goh, classified among the Conservatives, told journalists.
As for a choice in the line of Pope Francis, a reformer with the clear -cut word, “we recognize what he has done but no pope is perfect, nobody can do everything”. “We are going to find the right person to succeed Saint-Pierre” at the head of a Church with some 1.4 billion Catholics in the world, he added.
The Archbishop of Algiers Jean-Paul Vesco, classified among the progressives, said to him “to hope to deeply” a future pope in the continuity of François who “was like the father of the prodigal child who opens his arms and his heart great, that’s what we expect from a holy father”.
But before this historic vote “we do not feel ready, of course not”, he added, explaining: “We must discover the one that the Lord has already chosen. We would have needed much more time of prayer together, but I am sure that at the right time, we will be ready and that we will give the Church the Pope that the Lord wanted”.
A few hours before the start of these meetings, US President Donald Trump published a portrait of him on his social network, probably generated by artificial intelligence, showing him dressed in papal outfit.
This article was published automatically. Sources: ATS / AFP
