{"id":3737,"date":"2025-04-29T07:33:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T07:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/?p=3737"},"modified":"2025-04-29T07:33:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T07:33:20","slug":"conclave-selection-of-pope-francis-successor-begins-may-7-vatican","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/2025\/04\/29\/conclave-selection-of-pope-francis-successor-begins-may-7-vatican\/","title":{"rendered":"Conclave Selection of Pope Francis Successor begins May 7-Vatican"},"content":{"rendered":"
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To fill the vacuum created by the exit\u00a0 of late Pope Francis,Catholic cardinals from across the globe will meet on May 7 to start voting for a new pope, the Vatican announced Monday, a week after the death of Pope Francis.<\/p>\n

The \u201cPrinces of the Church\u201d under the age of 80 will meet in the Sistine Chapel to choose a new religious leader of the world\u2019s 1.4 billion Catholics, reports AFP.<\/p>\n

The date was decided at meeting of cardinals of all ages early today, two days after the funeral of Francis, who died on April 21 aged 88.<\/p>\n

The Church\u2019s 252 cardinals were called back to Rome after the Argentine\u2019s death, although only 135 are eligible to vote in the conclave.<\/p>\n

They hail from all corners of the globe and many of them do not know each other.
\nBut they already had four meetings last week, known as \u201cgeneral congregations\u201d, where they began to get better acquainted.
\nCardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, 83, a former head of the Italian bishops\u2019 conference, said there was a \u201cbeautiful, fraternal atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, there may be some difficulties because the voters have never been so numerous and
\nnot everyone knows each other,\u201d he told Italy\u2019s Corriere della Sera newspaper.<\/p>\n

The Vatican on Monday closed the Sistine Chapel, where voting will take place under Michelangelo\u2019s 16th-century ceiling frescoes, to begin preparations.<\/p>\n

So far there are few clues as to who cardinals might choose.
\n\u201cI believe that if Francis has been the pope of surprises, this conclave will be too, as it is not at all predictable,\u201d Spanish Cardinal Jose Cobo told El Pais in an interview published on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Francis was laid to rest on Saturday with a funeral and burial ceremony that drew 400,000 people to St Peter\u2019s Square and beyond, including royalty, world leaders and ordinary pilgrims.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, about 70,000 mourners filed past his marble tomb in the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome, after the \u201cpope of the poor\u201d opted to be buried outside the Vatican\u2019s walls.<\/p>\n

Bookmakers\u2019 odds<\/p>\n

With conflicts and diplomatic crises raging around the world, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who under Francis was secretary of state \u2014 the pope\u2019s number two \u2014 is for many the favourite to succeed him.
\nBritish bookmakers William Hill put him slightly ahead of Filipino Luis Antonio Tagle, the Metropolitan Archbishop emeritus of Manila, followed by Ghana\u2019s Cardinal Peter Turkson.<\/p>\n

Next in their odds come Matteo Zuppi, the Archbishop of Bologna, Guinea\u2019s Cardinal Robert Sarah, and Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

While Francis\u2019s efforts to create a more compassionate Church earned him widespread affection and respect, some of his reforms angered the Church\u2019s conservative wing, particularly in the United States and Africa.
\nRoberto Regoli, a professor of Church history and culture at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, told our correspondent that the cardinals would be looking \u201cto find someone who knows how to forge greater unity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in a period in which Catholicism is experiencing various polarisations, so I don\u2019t imagine it will be a very, very quick conclave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bassetti, who is too old to participate, said however he thought it \u201cwill not be long.\u201d
\nSome 80 percent of the cardinal electors were appointed by Francis \u2014 though that is no guarantee they will pick a successor in his likeness.<\/p>\n

Most are relatively young, and for many it is their first conclave.<\/p>\n

\u2018We need a courageous leader\u2019
\nThe vote is highly secretive and follows strict rules and ceremonial procedures. The process could take several days, or potentially longer.<\/p>\n

There are four votes per day \u2014 two in the morning and two in the afternoon \u2014 until one candidate secures a two-thirds majority.<\/p>\n

Fewer than half of those eligible to vote are European.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future pope must have a universal heart, love all the continents. We must not look at colour, at origin, but at what is proposed,\u201d Cardinal Dieudonne Nzapalainga from the Central African Republic told the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a courageous leader, a bold one, capable of speaking forcefully, of holding the helm of the Church steady even in storms\u2026 offering stability in an era of great uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patrizia Spotti, a 68-year-old Italian visiting Rome for the 2026 Jubilee holy year, told AFP Monday she hoped the new pontiff \u201cwill be a pope like Francis\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was a difficult time for Catholicism, she said.
\n\u201cChurches are empty. And the Church itself has made mistakes, all the scandals with the children,\u201d she said, referring to the widespread revelations of clerical sex abuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To fill the vacuum created by the exit\u00a0 of late Pope Francis,Catholic cardinals from across the globe will meet on May 7 to start voting for a new pope, the Vatican announced Monday, a week after the death of Pope Francis. The \u201cPrinces of the Church\u201d under the age of 80 will meet in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2413,2414,2415,2412,307],"class_list":["post-3737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","tag-cardinal","tag-continent","tag-polarisations","tag-successor","tag-vacuum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3738,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737\/revisions\/3738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}