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Sunday, Apr 03, 2005

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International

Ancient rituals to find a modern Pope

By John Hooper, Stephen Bates and Rory Carroll

ROME, APRIL 2. When it comes, the death of the Pope will set in train an anomalous interlude in which the world's one billion Roman Catholics will be without a leader.

It will also herald a period in which mourning for the dead pontiff will coexist uneasily with fevered preparations for the election of his successor. Archaic ritual will be much to the fore, masking the Vatican's growing use of modern technology and communications.

Two men will play the key roles for two to three weeks — a Spaniard close to the conservative Opus Dei fellowship, and a German who for more than 20 years has been the church's theological watchdog.

Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo is the head of the Vatican ``ministry'' responsible for religious orders. But he also holds the title of Camerlengo, or chamberlain, of the Holy Roman church, and that only acquires substance the moment the Pope draws his last breath.

Interim administrator

At that point, the Cardinal Camerlengo becomes a sort of interim administrator, though in no sense an ``acting pope.'' His first duty will be to decide that the Pope really has died. Traditionally, this has been done in the presence of the papal master of ceremonies and various other members of the pontifical household, by tapping the Pope on the forehead with a silver hammer and calling out his baptismal name three times to see whether there is any response.

Cardinal Martinez is more likely to rely on the judgment of the Pope's team of doctors. But his chamberlain's silver hammer will not be idle, for its other use is to break the Fisherman's Ring — the pontiff's individualised signet ring — to ensure that no instructions can be given out under his seal after his death.

The Cardinal Camerlengo's other duty is to inform the Cardinal Vicar for Rome — who, in turn, will announce the death to the people of Rome — and tell the other main figure in the ``interregnum'', the dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to inform his fellow cardinals, heads of state and the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.

Since 2002 the dean has been Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a former archbishop of Munich and the head of the ``ministry'' in the Vatican that helps shape Catholic doctrine and keeps an eye out for maverick theologians. The chamberlain arranges for the death of the Pope to be certified and for his body to be removed. He then locks up the pontiff's apartment in the Vatican to ensure that his possessions do not fall into the wrong hands.

There was a time when there was a danger of the people of Rome looting the pontiff's residence after his death. That risk may have disappeared, but there are intelligence chiefs and newspaper editors who would pay handsomely for a peek at some of the most private documents in existence, and souvenir hunters who would no doubt do the same to own something that was once the property of St. Peter's successor.

Conclave

The chamberlain arranges for nine days of official mourning and the lying in state of the Pope's body in St. Peter's Basilica. The Cardinal Camerlengo will also arrange the funeral, which in normal circumstances takes place between four and six days after his death. At this point he will start to coordinate his work with the cardinals who will go into conclave.

The word comes from the Latin cum clave (``with key'') and refers to the fact that the Roman Catholic church's most senior prelates used to be locked in the Sistine Chapel and the immediately adjoining buildings. The idea was to make them as uncomfortable as possible to force a choice.

It first took hold in Viterbo, a town in central Italy that was the site of several papal elections in the middle ages at times when Rome itself was judged to be too turbulent. In 1271 the cardinals had spent no less than 33 months failing to make up their minds, largely for political reasons, when the people of Viterbo lost patience. They persuaded the local authorities to lock the cardinals in a fortress, cut their food rations and take off the roof of the fortress to expose them to the elements.

The cardinals soon chose Gregory X who, three years later, introduced new rules for the election of Popes, including one that said the cardinals had to meet in seclusion on a gradually reduced diet until they were living off bread and water. His successor was elected in a single day and the next Pope in seven. Right up until 1978 when John Paul II was chosen, a conclave was something to be approached with as much dread as reverence. The mainly elderly cardinals were lodged in a walled-off space within the Apostolic Palace, divided into small, bare rooms.

New rules

The next conclave will be the first to be held since the introduction of rules approved by John Paul himself in 1996, which give the cardinal-electors comfortable accommodation in a new guesthouse within the Vatican, a sizeable complex of 108 suites and 23 single rooms, all with private bathrooms. The prelates will travel by bus to and from the Sistine Chapel, where the voting takes place beneath Michelangelo's fresco of the last judgment. Nowadays, not all cardinals take part in a conclave. Anyone who has been nominated in pectore (ie, anonymously, so as to protect them from reprisals or for some other reason) is excluded. So are the many cardinals who are over 80.

Certainly, there have been some remarkable shocks in the 2,000 years of the papacy, few more unexpected than the election of Karol Wojtyla. Favourites are only rarely chosen and there is a saying that he who goes into the conclave a pope invariably comes out a cardinal. —

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