Vatican’s still smoky with no clear runners

vote like in an election.But this is something completely different. We are going to listen to the Lord and listen to the Holy Spirit,’’ said Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras.

In the run-up to the historic vote, much media speculation has centred on John Paul’s closest aide Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, suggesting that the German prelate might head initial balloting. But many Vatican watchers doubt whether such a figure, whose conservative dogma has polarised the Roman Catholic world, would be able to gain the two-thirds majority needed to become the 264th successor to the first pope, St. Peter. That could leave the field open to a less divisive candidate who could bridge the numerous factions.

The cardinals will hold up to four ballots a day until they reach the necessary majority.

Of the eight 20th century conclaves, none took longer than five days, and two of them were completed on the second day. It took just eight ballots over three days to choose Karol Wojtyla of Poland as Pope John Paul in 1978. Whereas in past conclaves, the elderly cardinals were forced to live in cramped cells inside a sealed-off Sistine Chapel, this time around they will sleep in the plush Santa Marta residence.

The cardinals will dine together in the Santa Marta on Sunday night and hold a public mass on Monday morning in St. Peter’s Basillica then they will file into the Sistine Chapel to start their deliberations.

In the build-up to the vote, some 15 cardinals have been promoted in the press as potential popes, including Italian cardinals Dionigi Tettamanzi and Angelo Scola, Brazil’s Claudio Hummes, Nigeria’s Francis Arinze and the Honduran Maradiaga. The conclave will be like no other election in the world.

There will be no press briefings after the ballots, no spin doctors promoting their candidates, just a puff of smoke from the Sistine chimney — black smoke for an inconclusive vote and white when a new pope is chosen. —Reuters