VATICAN CITY
Telegraph (UK)
[with video]
The conclave, the centuries-old process by which a new Pope is elected, will begin on March 12, meaning Catholics should have a new pontiff by the end of next week.
Nick Squires in Rome
5:10PM GMT 08 Mar 2013
More than 150 cardinals, who have held discussions in Rome all week on the crises facing the Roman Catholic Church, announced the long-anticipated start date on Friday, 12 days after Benedict XVI resigned the papacy because of fatigue and old age.
The conclave will be held amid the utmost secrecy in the Sistine Chapel, famous for its frescoes by Michelangelo and other Renaissance masters. The longest conclave in the 20th century took five days, and most lasted between two and four days. …
There is a reformist bloc led by Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan, which has the backing of many non-Italian cardinals, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, and Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Austria.
They have been appalled by revelations of nepotism and cronyism within the Holy See that were revealed by confidential documents stolen from the Pope by his butler and leaked to the media in what was dubbed the Vatileaks scandal.
The reformists are squaring up to a more traditionalist bloc led by Cardinal Odilo Peter Scherer, the archbishop of Sao Paolo in Brazil, and comprising many Italian cardinals, who are resisting calls for radical reform of the Curia, the Church’s governing body.
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