VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
Vanguard [Apapa Lagos, Nigeria]
April 29, 2025
By Nkiruka Nnorom
Catholic cardinals agreed yesterday to begin a conclave on May 7 to elect a new pope, highlighting clerical sexual abuse as one of the key challenges facing Pope Francis’s successor.
Cardinals under the age of 80, will meet in the Sistine Chapel to choose a new leader for the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, in a mystery-shrouded ritual dating back to the Middle Ages.
The date was decided at a meeting of cardinals of all ages early yesterday, two days after the funeral of Francis who died on April 21, aged 88.
‘’The cardinals, known as princes of the Church, outlined Catholicism’s most pressing challenges, including evangelisation, the relationship with other faiths and the issue of abuse. “There was talk of the qualities that the new pontiff must possess to respond effectively to these challenges,” the Vatican said.
The Church’s 252 cardinals were recalled to Rome after the Argentine pontiff’s death, although only 135 are eligible to vote in the conclave.
They hail from all corners of the globe, and many of them do not know each other but they already had four meetings last week, at the general congregations, where they began to become better acquainted.
Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, 83, a former head of the Italian bishops’ conference, said there was a beautiful fraternal atmosphere.
“Of course, there may be some difficulties because the voters have never been so numerous and not everyone knows each other,” he told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Yesterday, the Vatican closed the Sistine Chapel, where voting will take place under Michelangelo’s 16th-century ceiling frescoes, to begin preparations.
So far, there are a few clues as to who the cardinals might choose.
“I believe that if Francis has been the pope of surprises, this conclave will be too, as it is not at all predictable,” Spanish Cardinal Jose Cobo, told El Pais in an interview published on Sunday.
Francis was laid to rest on Saturday in a ceremony that drew 400,000 people, including royalty, world leaders and ordinary pilgrims.
On Sunday, about 70,000 mourners filed past his marble tomb in the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome, after the pope of the poor opted to be buried outside the Vatican’s walls.
With conflicts and diplomatic crises raging around the world, Italian Cardinal, Pietro Parolin, is for many the favourite to succeed Francis.
Parolin was secretary of state under Francis – the pope’s number two.
British bookmakers, William Hill, put Parolin slightly ahead of Filipino Luis Antonio Tagle, the Metropolitan Archbishop emeritus of Manila, followed by Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson.
Next in their odds come Matteo Zuppi, the Archbishop of Bologna; Guinea’s Cardinal Robert Sarah; and Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
Francis’s successor will inherit a series of measures he introduced to combat clerical sexual abuse.
But victims’ associations say he did not do enough, and the scandals show no sign of abating.
Anne Barrett Doyle from Bishop Accountability.org said he abused archive “applaud(s) the acknowledgment by the cardinals that ending the abuse crisis must be a priority.
“The Church worldwide, through its parishes, schools, hospitals and orphanages, cares for tens of millions of children. The next pope’s most sacred obligation must be to protect them.”
The challenge is significant. In many African and Asian countries, the subject remains taboo.
Even in Europe, Italy has yet to launch an independent investigation into abuse allegations.
While Francis’ efforts to create a more compassionate Church earned him widespread affection and respect, some of his reforms angered the Church’s conservative wing, particularly in the United States and Africa.
Roberto Regoli, a professor of Church history and culture at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, said the cardinals would be looking to find someone who knows how to forge greater unity.