VATICAN CITY
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Published: March 10, 2013
VATICAN CITY — The cardinals who enter the papal conclave on Tuesday will walk into the Sistine Chapel in a single file, but beneath the orderly display, they are split into competing lineups and power blocs that will determine which man among them emerges as pope.
The main divide pits the cardinals who work in the Vatican, the Romans, against the reformers, the cardinals who want the next pope to tackle what they see as the Vatican’s corruption, inefficiency and reluctance to share power and information with bishops from around the world.
But the factions in this conclave do not break along geographical lines, and in fact, they have produced alliances that are surprisingly counterintuitive: the Romans’ top preference appears to be a Brazilian, and the reformers are said to be pushing for an Italian.
This conclave is far more unpredictable and suspenseful than the last because the church landscape has shifted in the last eight years. The next pontiff must unite an increasingly globalized church paralyzed by scandal and mismanagement under the spotlight in a fast-moving media age. And among the cardinals, there is no obvious single successor to Pope Benedict XVI, who rattled the church by resigning last month at age 85.
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