Catholic car­di­nals on Mon­day set May 7 as the start date for the Con­clave to elect Pope Fran­cis’ suc­ces­sor, de­lay­ing the se­cret vot­ing for two days so they can get to know one an­oth­er bet­ter, and find con­sen­sus on a can­di­date be­fore they are se­questered in the Sis­tine Chapel.

The car­di­nals set the date af­ter ar­riv­ing for the first day of in­for­mal meet­ings fol­low­ing Pope Fran­cis’ fu­ner­al on Sat­ur­day.

In a chaot­ic scene, jour­nal­ists shout­ed ques­tions about the mood in­side and whether there was uni­ty. A re­porter for a satir­i­cal Ital­ian tele­vi­sion pro­gram asked whether an Ital­ian car­di­nal who has been con­vict­ed by the Vat­i­can crim­i­nal court on fi­nance-re­lat­ed charges would be al­lowed to vote.

The con­clave could have opened as ear­ly as May 5, but the car­di­nals gave them­selves ex­tra time to speak in more in­for­mal ses­sions that in­clude car­di­nals over age 80, who will not be al­lowed in­to the Sis­tine Chapel once the con­clave be­gins. They will next meet on Tues­day morn­ing,

“There is the hope of uni­ty,” said Ar­gen­tine Car­di­nal Án­gel Six­to Rossi, the 66-year-old arch­bish­op of Cor­do­ba who Fran­cis made a car­di­nal in 2023.

Many car­di­nals cit­ed the de­sire to con­tin­ue Fran­cis’ pas­toral fo­cus on peo­ple who are mar­gin­al­ized and against war. But con­ser­v­a­tives may be more fo­cused on forg­ing uni­ty and re­fo­cus­ing the church back on core doc­trines em­pha­sized by St. John Paul II and Pope Bene­dict XVI, rather than con­tin­u­ing Fran­cis’ so­cial jus­tice fo­cus and out­reach to women and gays.

British Car­di­nal Vin­cent Nichols, the 79-year-old arch­bish­op of West­min­ster, was adamant that the church must strive for uni­ty, and he down­played di­vi­sions.

“The role of the pope is to es­sen­tial­ly hold us to­geth­er and that’s the grace we’ve been giv­en from God,” Nichols said.

Venezue­lan Car­di­nal Bal­tazar En­rique Por­ras Car­do­zo ex­pressed con­fi­dence that once the con­clave be­gins, a de­ci­sion would be quick, “be­tween two and three days.”

Car­di­nal elec­tors

The Col­lege of Car­di­nals that will elect a new pope in­cludes mem­bers from far-flung cor­ners of the globe whom Fran­cis named over his 12-year pa­pa­cy to bring in new points of view — of­ten at the ex­pense of tra­di­tion­al cen­tres of Catholi­cism.

Many have spent lit­tle or no time in Rome get­ting to know col­leagues, in­ject­ing some un­cer­tain­ty in­to a process that re­quires two-thirds of the vot­ing-age car­di­nals to co­a­lesce be­hind a sin­gle can­di­date.

Nichols ac­knowl­edged that the 135 car­di­nal elec­tors — 108 of whom were ap­point­ed by Fran­cis — don’t know each oth­er very well. The last 20 were ap­point­ed in ear­ly De­cem­ber.

“We’ve got all week,” Nichols said as he ar­rived.

On­ly car­di­nals un­der 80 are el­i­gi­ble to vote, and it is not clear how many of the 135 will par­tic­i­pate. A Span­ish car­di­nal has said he won’t come to Rome for health rea­sons.

A big un­cer­tain­ty is whether Car­di­nal An­ge­lo Bec­ciu, once one of the most pow­er­ful car­di­nals in the Vat­i­can, will be al­lowed in the Sis­tine Chapel.

In 2020, Fran­cis forced Bec­ciu to re­sign as head of the Vat­i­can’s saint-mak­ing of­fice and re­nounce his rights as a car­di­nal be­cause of al­le­ga­tions of em­bez­zle­ment and fi­nan­cial fraud. Bec­ciu de­nied any wrong­do­ing but was put on tri­al in the Vat­i­can crim­i­nal court and con­vict­ed of fi­nance-re­lat­ed charges in De­cem­ber 2023.

He is ap­peal­ing the con­vic­tion and has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pre-con­clave meet­ings, but there is a lin­ger­ing ques­tion about whether he is en­ti­tled to vote. The Vat­i­can’s of­fi­cial sta­tis­tics list him as a “non-elec­tor”. When he was oust­ed in 2020, Bec­ciu told a hasti­ly arranged press con­fer­ence that he wouldn’t be vot­ing in any fu­ture con­clave, but re­cent­ly he has in­sist­ed he is en­ti­tled to vote, and canon lawyers have been por­ing over the Vat­i­can doc­u­ment reg­u­lat­ing the con­clave to de­ter­mine if he’s right.

The case was dis­cussed Mon­day by car­di­nals but there was “no res­o­lu­tion,” the Vat­i­can said.

Pa­pal can­di­dates

While Fran­cis stacked the ranks with his car­di­nals, it is not nec­es­sar­i­ly the case that all of them will want to see the church con­tin­ue in his im­age.

On Mon­day, any glimpse of a red cap ap­pear­ing along St. Pe­ter’s Square’s state­ly colon­nade set jour­nal­ists run­ning with cam­eras and voice recorders aloft to cap­ture the mood in­side.

Ital­ian Car­di­nal Mat­teo Zup­pi, con­sid­ered a con­tender to be the next pope, nav­i­gat­ed the scrum of jour­nal­ists with hu­mour, jok­ing that he was “hold­ing his breath” as the mi­cro­phones and cam­eras sur­round­ed him all the way to the Vat­i­can gate.

African voic­es

Niger­ian Car­di­nal John Olorun­fe­mi On­aiyekan, the emer­i­tus arch­bish­op of Abu­ja, was asked if the African car­di­nals were co­a­lesc­ing around a par­tic­u­lar can­di­date.

African bish­ops had made a re­mark­ably unit­ed stand last year against Fran­cis’ out­reach to LGBTQ+ peo­ple, re­fus­ing to im­ple­ment his de­c­la­ra­tion al­low­ing priests to of­fer bless­ings to same-sex cou­ples. Giv­en such a stand, there is some spec­u­la­tion that the 18 African car­di­nal elec­tors could help block a pro­gres­sive can­di­date from emerg­ing.

“We have not come here for a po­lit­i­cal ral­ly. We have come to get a pope out,” said On­aiyekan, who at 81 is too old to vote but can have a role in in­flu­enc­ing how younger elec­tors might.

In­di­an Car­di­nal An­tho­ny Poola, the 61-year-old arch­bish­op of Hy­der­abad, said he had ex­pe­ri­enced a sense of uni­ty among his fel­low car­di­nals but al­lowed that “any­thing could hap­pen.” As a rel­a­tive­ly young car­di­nal, Poola is one of four In­di­an elec­tors who will par­tic­i­pate in the con­clave, three of whom, in­clud­ing Poola, were named by Fran­cis.

“Any­one who is com­ing up must be the suc­ces­sor of St. Pe­ter, and we all hope that he will be a good pope,” he said.

Rossi, the Ar­gen­tine car­di­nal, said he hoped that Fran­cis’ mes­sage of “mer­cy, close­ness, char­i­ty, ten­der­ness and faith,” would ac­com­pa­ny them in find­ing a suc­ces­sor.

But he ac­knowl­edged the job was daunt­ing. Asked how he felt about par­tic­i­pat­ing in his first con­clave, he re­spond­ed with a laugh: “Afraid.” —VAT­I­CAN CITY (AP)

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Sto­ry by NICOLE WIN­FIELD and COLLEEN BAR­RY | As­so­ci­at­ed Press.
Nicole Win­field has been on the Vat­i­can beat since 2001, cov­er­ing the pa­pa­cies of St. John Paul II, Pope Bene­dict XVI and the Fran­cis pon­tif­i­cate and trav­el­ing the world with them.
Colleen Bar­ry cov­ers all things Italy for The As­so­ci­at­ed Press. Her fo­cus in­cludes fash­ion and de­sign, over­tourism and the en­vi­ron­ment, pol­i­tics and some­times the Vat­i­can.

[As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­li­gion cov­er­age re­ceives sup­port through the AP’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with The Con­ver­sa­tion US, with fund­ing from Lil­ly En­dow­ment Inc. The AP is sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for this con­tent.]