ROME
National Catholic Reporter
by Joshua J. McElwee,Dennis Coday | Mar. 11, 2013
Rome —
As a few night owls strolled through the crisp Roman evening Feb. 28, they were illuminated by one less reflection of lights. Behind the northern side of the square’s iconic colonnades, the apostolic palace was dark.
In a small but tell-tale sign of the transition facing the church, the lights of the pope’s apartment had been turned off.
Hours before, as Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation took effect at exactly 8 p.m. local time, the doors to the apartment had been ceremonially sealed with ribbon and wax, not to be broken before the election of a new pontiff by the church’s cardinals.
It was a dramatic change in scenery. And in the days before and after, change has been the watchword of the former pope, the cardinals who have taken up the role of shepherding the church, and analysts speculating on what happens next for the central command of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.
Following a series of scandals — reports that gay Roman priests are overly influenced by their lovers, the resignation of a cardinal accused of sexual impropriety, and the continuing effects of last year’s trial of the papal valet for leaking Vatican documents — each has said the church needs to go through some sort of spiritual change or transformation.
“This is a time of thirst” for the church, Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, considered a long-shot possibility to be pope, told NCR in a brief interview March 4.
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