Cardinals’ conclave could choose a new Pope sooner

The Vatican this week confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI is considering changes to church law regulating the election of a new pope, but stopped short of saying whether voting could start earlier than currently planned.

Pope John Paul II’s 1996 Apostolic Constitution, ‘Universi Dominici Gregis’, regulates what happens between the death or resignation of a pope and the election of his successor.

It stipulates that the conclave of cardinals must start 15 to 20 days after the end of the previous pontificate.

But after Benedict’s surprise announcement that he will resign on February 28, several voices within the church have asked for an earlier start to the voting to shorten the time the Catholic Church is left without a leader.

The Reverend Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s chief spokesman, said this week that the pontiff is considering the publication of a decree, “to clarify some specific points of the Apostolic Constitution on the conclave that had been pointed out to him in recent years”.

According to Vatican Insider, the religion news portal of the Italian daily La Stampa, Benedict will authorize the cardinals’ assembly that will govern the church after his resignation to vote whether to move up the start of the conclave.

Rites

Revd Lombardi stressed that he didn’t know whether the Pope “will deem it necessary to issue a clarification on the date of the start of the conclave”.

“We’ll see it, if and when the document is published,” he said.

Instead, he said some of the changes that Benedict could introduce would “fully harmonize” John Paul’s 1996 rules with another document that lays out in detail the rites to be followed during the conclave.

Benedict already modified the conclave rules in 2007, reversing a previous change that allowed popes to be elected under some circumstances with a simple majority, rather than with a two-thirds majority. As Benedict’s scheduled resignation approaches, the date of the conclave is only one of the many unanswered questions sparked by the unprecedented change in leadership.

The Vatican is still struggling to define what title the former pope will have, and whether he will be attending the inauguration Mass of his successor.

Each of the issues has potentially far-reaching consequences for the delicate relationship between a living ex-pope and his successor, who will be living a few hundred metres apart within the Vatican walls.

According to a senior Vatican source, the initial reaction to Benedict’s announcement — shock mixed with admiration — is being replaced by “dismay”, and even “disappointment”.

The Pope’s resignation, though considered in church law, caught the Vatican machine utterly unprepared, and observers say it’s still too early to evaluate its long-term effects.

In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera this week, Cardinal Walter Kasper, a respected German theologian and longtime head of the Vatican’s ecumenical office, said that the role of the Pope and of the Vatican Curia will have to be reconsidered in light of Benedict’s decision.

The “sacred aura” that has come to surround popes in the last two centuries, he said, “is now somewhat lost”.

So who’s in charge until a new pope is chosen?

The ‘interregnum’ between two popes is governed by ancient rituals and institutions half-forgotten, even within the Vatican. But it is also the only time that the Catholic Church comes close to resembling a democracy, with the College of Cardinals acting somewhat like a Parliament with limited powers as it prepares to choose the new pontiff in a closed-doors conclave.

 According to Universi Dominici Gregis, during the ‘sede vacante’ period all the heads of Vatican departments “cease to exercise their office”.

The only officials to remain in their posts are the Vicar of Rome, who provides for the pastoral needs of Romans, and the major penitentiary, who grants absolutions and dispensations.

The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, will also lose the post that’s the rough equivalent of a prime minister.

But Cardinal Bertone also holds the post of camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church. Together with the Apostolic Chamber, he runs the Vatican state and is in charge of the church’s money in the absence of the Pope.

In preparation for his resignation, Benedict on February 13 appointed Archbishop Giuseppe Sciacca, deputy governor of the Vatican City State, as auditor general of the Apostolic Chamber, a position vacant since 2010. He will act as a sort of legal adviser to the camerlengo and vice-camerlengo, retired Italian Archbishop Pier Luigi Celata.

 During the period between popes, the dean of the College of Cardinals (Cardinal Angelo Sodano) presides at the daily meetings of the cardinals that effectively run the church on an interim basis.

But as he is over 80 and won’t have the right to vote, his place will be taken by the most senior member of the College of Cardinals, Giovanni Battista Re.

The power of the assembly of cardinals is limited. According to John Paul’s 1996 instructions, its sole task is to “dispatch of ordinary business and of matters which cannot be postponed” and to prepare the conclave that will elect the next pope.

In the daily congregations, attended by all cardinals of voting age (under 80) present in Rome, they decide by majority vote.

Once the conclave elects the new Pope and he accepts, governance of the Vatican returns to the Pope’s hands.