Pope changes rules for papal elections

[trueimage 0]

Pope changes rules for papal elections By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press WriterTue Jun 26, 1:43 PM ET

Pope Benedict XVI has changed the rules for electing popes, making it potentially harder to name a successor but ensuring that when the white smoke rises from the Sistine Chapel, the new pontiff will have broad support among cardinals.

Benedict issued a one-page document in Latin on Tuesday requiring that two-thirds of the cardinals in a conclave agree on the new pontiff. The move was a return to Vatican tradition and reversed Pope John Paul II's 1996 decision to let an absolute majority of cardinals decide on the next pope if they remained deadlocked after 33 rounds of balloting.

Some analysts had argued that with John Paul's rules, the majority bloc in a conclave could push through a candidate by simply holding tight until the balloting shifted from the two-thirds requirement to an absolute majority.

In the document, Benedict said his predecessor had received a number of requests to return to the former system after he issued his 1996 document.

"It would seem that Pope Benedict wants to ensure that whoever is elected pope enjoys the greatest possible consensus," said the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.

The new document — essentially an executive order called a "motu proprio" — came as something of a surprise, since the main public criticism of the Vatican's voting process to date has concerned the exclusion of cardinals over age 80.

There was no explanation about why the pope, who turned 80 in April, made the change now. It came just before he goes on vacation and the Vatican essentially shuts down for the summer.

Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was elected pope April 19, 2005, in one of the fastest conclaves in modern history. In an unauthorized account of the secretive balloting published in 2005, an anonymous cardinal revealed that Benedict was elected after four ballots with 84 of the 115 votes — seven more than necessary.

The diary, published by the respected Italian foreign affairs magazine Limes, was significant because it showed that Benedict didn't win with a huge margin. Pope John Paul II and Pope John Paul I are believed to have garnered 99 and 98 votes respectively, and that was when there were 111 voting cardinals.

John Paul II instituted the simple majority in part to avoid a deadlock like the one in the 13th century, when negotiations over choosing a new pope lasted three years. Angry locals in Viterbo north of Rome, where the conclave was held, removed the roof of the cardinals' meeting hall and threatened to slash food rations unless they picked a winner.

In 1623, eight cardinals died of malaria during a summer conclave in Rome that lasted 19 days.

But no conclave in the past century has lasted more than five days, and the 1978 election of John Paul II took eight ballots over three days.

The Rev. Michael Fahey, a theology professor at Boston College and a specialist in papal elections, said conclave norms had shifted over the years, and that Benedict's change merely corresponds to the reality today where a conclave lasting weeks or months just isn't likely.

John Paul's norms "did create the possibility for tension and jockeying whereby you could have a group of cardinals holding out until the bitter end so that they might be able to get a simple majority, but the chances of that happening were remote," he said.

He called the switch a "minor adjustment" that carried no real significance.

"You could write an encyclopedia in the way cardinals elected popes over the centuries," he added in a telephone interview.

The Rev. Jesus Minambres, a professor of canon law at the Opus Dei-run Santa Croce University in Rome, said popes over the centuries have adjusted conclave norms — and that their successors have changed them at will.

He noted that John Paul II frequently surpassed the limit on the number of voting-age cardinals set by Pope Paul VI — 120. Benedict has said he would respect the number, and with Tuesday's document, he is also going back to Paul VI's norms concerning the two-thirds majority. Minambres said Benedict was acting "perhaps out of great respect for the laws of the past."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070626/ap_on_...LYAmcbCgRpbbBAF

[Alex+R 0]

I thought God chose the Pope. Isn't that where he derives his power? Weird religion Catholics have got there.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

I thought God chose the Pope. Isn't that where he derives his power? Weird religion Catholics have got there.

I can think of much stranger religions? Especially the kind that likes to strap it on and.........................BOOOM!

Makes catholisizm seem mild in comparison.

Could be the latter,but I doubt it.

[Caladan 19]

I thought God chose the Pope. Isn't that where he derives his power? Weird religion Catholics have got there.

Blah, blah, God guides the cardinals in prayer, blah, blah, it's basically politics like anything else and there are frontrunners and dark horse candidates.

[Mononoke28 135]

Well technically, it's the Holy Spirit who guides the cardinals at the time of voting. Whether you believe that or not, that's the actual thinking behind the election. And also, it's not very polite to criticize someone else's religion, especially when you have a forum filled with people who have so many different beliefs.

Edited June 27, 2007 by Mononoke28