VATICAN CITY
euronews
[with video]
No public stages, no extra flags, no slogans… You won’t find anything like that in Rome before the conclave of cardinals who will choose a successor to Benedict XVI from among their number.
Cardinals do not campaign to become pope. Even when names are floated in public of men seen as having the right stuff, they themselves keep quiet. It’s one of the ways that a papal election is unlike any other. Secrecy reigns.
The other rules include an age limit. To be able to vote; a cardinal must be younger than 80 at the time the papal throne was vacated. Two of the 115 cardinals eligible to participate in this conclave had their 80th birthdays just after Benedict resigned on February 28th.
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