VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud
Vatican City, February 25 – With only four days remaining before Benedict XVI steps down as pope, new questions continue to surface regarding how his successor will be elected. On Monday Benedict issued a decree changing the rules of the conclave electing the new head of the Catholic Church. The rule change allows the conclave to take place sooner than the mandatory 15 days from a papacy’s end, and so before mid-March, the Vatican said. “The cardinals will be permitted to bring forward the start of the conclave, if they are all present,” said the decree, called ‘motu proprio’ in Latin. Vatican Spokesman Federico Lombardi said: “We cannot anticipate the date of the conclave, but it is likely a formal decision will come in the first few days of March”.
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