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Gossip rules at the
Vatican
By David Willey, BBC Rome correspondent
Monday, February 28, 2005
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•Pope
Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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The Pope's latest spell in hospital and his deteriorating
medical condition have led to new speculation about his possible
successor. Yet inside the Vatican it is considered bad manners
openly to discuss the papal’s succession, let alone
to campaign on behalf of any particular cardinal while the
reigning Pope is still alive.
A formal prohibition against discussing who is going to be
the next pope until the reigning pope is actually dead dates
back a long way in history - 15 centuries to be exact.
Pope Felix IV was a sixth Century pope who fell foul of the
local clergy and the Roman Senate by trying to nominate his
own successor. The Senate objected and passed an edict forbidding
any discussion of his successor during a pope's lifetime.
Walking through the splendidly frescoed corridors of power
inside the Vatican during these crisis days when the absent
Pope lies stricken and mute in hospital, at first sight everything
seems terribly normal.
Cardinals wearing their distinctive red sashes, or more simply
dressed in simple clergymen's black suits, glide from office
to office clutching their black briefcases.
Nowadays they rarely wear the black cassocks with red piping
which used to enable you immediately identify their lofty
rank.
Little time to plot
Behind the scenes at the Vatican however, behind those thickly
padded doors which still protect the privacy of the top cardinals
who run the Church, the gossip level about who is going to
succeed John Paul has reached a new intensity.
One well-known cardinal was heard to declare that one of his
fellow Princes of the Church was an "idiot" for
sounding off about the subject.
There is only a small window of opportunity for the so-called
"papabili" - the shortlist of real candidates for
the job - to meet together and plot voting strategies at the
Conclave, the electoral body of cardinals summoned from around
the world on the death of the pontiff to elect his successor.
The Conclave takes place not less than 15 and not more than
20 days after a pope's death.
After the funeral they have little more than a week for informal
secret discussions about the personality profile and job qualifications
they are going to demand for their new leader.
Even discussion about what would happen if the Pope were to
go into a coma, or become mentally impaired, with disastrous
possible consequences for the smooth functioning of the Vatican's
well-oiled bureaucratic machine, is officially frowned upon.
Eye-brows were therefore raised last month when the cardinal
secretary of state, technically the Pope's number two, speculated
in public about what would happen if the Pope felt he could
no longer carry on as leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman
Catholics.
Could he not resign, the cardinal was asked. That would be
a matter for the Pope's own conscience, the cardinal replied,
implying that resignation was still on the cards, despite
the Pope's frequent insistence that he intends to carry on
"while there is breath in my body".
Looming limbo
But no-one really seems to have budgeted for a prolonged absence
of the Pope in hospital.
The moment the Pope dies, every important official at the
Vatican immediately loses his job, until he is confirmed in
office by the next pontiff.
The headquarters of the Church goes into a sort of limbo,
to use the terminology the Church adopts to describe that
halfway house between heaven and hell for souls destined neither
for eternal punishment nor eternal bliss.
The technical name is a "Vacancy of the Holy See".
This is important because it highlights the absolute, monarchical
power of the office of pope in the organisational structure
of the Catholic Church.
Once he is elected, every important appointment, every big
policy decision has to be personally taken by him.
Of course the Pope is assisted by his heads of department,
and the Vatican bureaucracy is so finely honed, that it chugs
along very well by itself, even if the Pope, like the current
one, chooses not to interfere too much in the ordinary day-to-day
running of Church administration.
But the man usually described as Pope's number two, Cardinal
Angelo Sodano, an Italian, can never pretend to exercise the
same powers as those enjoyed by the Pope himself.
So if John Paul were to lapse into a coma, or were to become
impaired to the extent that he is unable effectively to exercise
his powers, the implications for Church governance are grave.
Modern medical progress can create administrative, as well
as ethical problems.
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