Vatican City, 6 March 2013 (VIS) - “At the fourth General
Congregation, which began this morning at 9:00am with the prayer of the
Liturgy of Hours, 153 cardinals were present. This number includes four
additional cardinals who arrived and were sworn in today, three Cardinal
electors: Cardinal Antonios Naguib, patriarch emeritus of Alexandria,
Egypt; Cardinal Karl Lehmann, bishop of Mainz, Germany; Cardinal John
Tong Hon, bishop of Hong Kong, China; as well as Cardinal Friedrich
Wetter, archbishop emeritus of Munich, Germany who is not an elector,”
said Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., director of the Holy See Press Office
during his daily news conference with journalists.
To date, there are 113 Cardinal electors present. Tomorrow the two
remaining Cardinal electors are expected—Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz,
archbishop of Warsaw, Poland, will arrive this afternoon and Cardinal
Jean-Baptiste Pham Minh Man, archbishop of Thanh-Pho Ho Chi Minh,
Vietnam tomorrow morning.
“In the fraternal spirit that characterizes the Congregations,” Fr.
Lombardi reported, “Cardinal Dean Angelo Sodano wished a happy birthday
to Cardinal Walter Kasper (who turned 80 yesterday), Cardinal Francesco
Coccopalmerio (who turns 75 today), and Cardinal Julio Terrazas
Sandoval, C.SS.R., (who turns 77 tomorrow). Cardinal Kasper continues to
be a Cardinal elector—he will be the oldest to cast his vote in this
Conclave—because the Apostolic Constitution regulating the procedure for
electing the pontiff establishes the age limit for cardinals entering
the Conclave to be determined from the beginning of the period of the
Sede Vacante.
This morning 18 cardinals addressed the gathering. Without going into
details, the director of the Holy See Press office gave a general
overview of their nature. “The major theme,” Fr. Lombardi said, “was the
Church in the world, the New Evangelization. Other topics included the
Holy See, its Dicasteries and relations with bishops. A third theme was a
profile of expectations for the next pope in view of the good
government of the Church.”
“There have been 51 speeches since the beginning of the
Congregations,” he added. Given the large number of cardinals wishing to
address the gathering, a five minute time limit was established but is
not strictly enforced. It was decided that tomorrow they will meet in a
morning as well as an afternoon session.
Regarding the cancelling of the press conferences that some of the
American cardinals were giving in these days, Fr. Lombardi observed that
“the Congregations are not a synod or a congress in which we try to
report the most information possible, but a path toward arriving at the
decision of electing the Roman Pontiff. In this sense, the tradition of
this path is one of reservation in order to safeguard the freedom of
reflection on the part of each of the members of the College of
Cardinals who has to make such an important decision. It does not
surprise me, therefore, that along this path there were, at the
beginning, moments of openness and communication and that afterwards, in
harmony with the rest of the College, it has been established whether
and how to communicate.”
Also brought up in the press conference was the date of the opening
of the Conclave. “The College has a great spirit of preparation that is
serious, profound, and unhurried,” Fr. Lombardi clarified. “Perhaps that
is why it still did not seem opportune to take a vote on the date of
the Conclave, which a large part of the College could sense as something
forced in the dynamic of reflection. It also needs to be kept in mind
that some cardinals are still arriving and it would be a sign of respect
for them to wait until the College is complete.”
In conclusion, the director of the Holy See Press Office confirmed
that “the Fisherman's Ring has been scratched over,” that is, rendered
unusable.
Source:
VIS - Vatican Information Service
