In Rome, a Week off Suspense

Speculation mounts over who will inherit Pope Paul's tiara

We earnestly exhort the electors that they should not let themselves be guided by friendship or aversion, or be influenced by favor or respect toward anyone, or be forced by the intervention of persons in authority or by pressure groups...

--Pope Paul VI, in his 1975 decree on papal elections

Notwithstanding Paul's earnest exhortation, his funeral was hardly over before outside pressure groups began agitating over the sort of man who should become the next Pope. The ultraconservative religious movement Civilta Cristiana plastered Rome with posters demanding "a preacher of crystal-clear doctrine and a custodian of truth against the current heresy." Other right-wingers who follow France's semischismatic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre drew up a broadside linking certain papabili (possible Popes) with Freemasonry. At the other end of the ideological spectrum, the U.S.-based Committee for the Responsible Election of the Pope issued in Rome a list of necessary papal traits, among them happiness, holiness and willingness to "trust others."

Trying some long-distance lobbying, 300 American nuns attending a convention in Pittsburgh of the National Assembly of Women Religious issued an open letter beseeching the all-male College of Cardinals to incorporate into the election "the voices of those whom present church structures exclude from participation." Minnesota's Archbishop John R. Roach, vice president of the U.S. bishops' conference, even named names. Because the next Pope must be a "very strong evangelizer" above all, Roach said, he favors George Basil Hume of England, who is considered an extremely long shot.

The only talk that really counted last week, however, was proceeding among the Cardinals who will elect Roman Catholicism's 263rd Pope in hermetic secrecy during the conclave that begins this Friday evening. Paul stripped the right to vote from Cardinals age 80 and over, a ruling affecting 15 of the 129 red hats. With the death in Rome last week of Paul Yu Pin, 77, the exiled Chinese Cardinal, 114 men are eligible. But America's John Wright, India's Valerian Gracias and Poland's Boleslaw Filipiak are too ill to participate. (Like Yu Pin, they were likely to join the conservative bloc.) If Viet Nam refuses to grant an exit visa to Joseph Marie Trin Nhu Khue of Hanoi, a total of 110 Cardinals will enter the conclave.

Paul's 1975 election decree continued the centuries-old ban on vote trading and open campaigning but encouraged more discreet activity: "We do not have the intention of forbidding the exchange of views concerning the election during the period in which the see is vacant." Exchanges were certainly taking place in Rome last week. Said one Italian member of the conclave: "The Cardinals discuss everything about the papabili."

Informal but highly important chats fill the suspenseful days before the conclave. The Cardinals hold a daily General Congregation in the ornate Sala Bologna in the Apostolic Palace, where, speaking in Italian or Latin, they handle preparations for the conclave. When the meetings end, usually around 1:30 p.m., the emerging Cardinals form groups of twos and threes and stroll slowly down Raphael's magnificent loggia or across the San Damaso courtyard three stories below. Other conversations take place during evening walks, a common form of ecclesiastical exercise. National and regional groups hold informal caucuses as a matter of course: nine Spanish-speaking Cardinals are living together at the Spanish Pontifical College and most of the Africans at the College of the Propaganda Fide.

One question under intense discussion everywhere: Should the next Pope be a non-Italian for the first time since 1523? Austria's Franz Koenig spoke in favor of that idea; none of his fellow Cardinals, however, appear to be joining such a movement. In fact, Spain's Marcelo Gonzales Martin declared that an Italian would provide the needed "balance and serenity." One seasoned Vatican official--neither a Cardinal nor an Italian--figures the conclave simply will not have the courage to break the centuries-old lock that Italy has on the office, even though non-Europeans now constitute 64% of the world's Roman Catholics.

This in turn revived the old Roman axiom, "A Pope is not elected against the Curia." Active and retired Italians with Curial experience, and the skill in papal politics that goes with it, far outnumber non-Italians. Ethnic solidarity enhances the prospects of three Curial Italians: Sebastiano Baggio, 65; Paolo Bertoli, 70; and Sergio Pignedoli, 68. At the same time, Curial clout damages the candidacy of Argentina's Eduardo Pirono, who is Italian descended but heartily disliked by many of his fellow Cardinals in the Vatican because he is an individualist and an outsider. (Besides that, he is a "young" 57. None of the seven Popes elected in the past century have been below age 60.)

"There is no candidate," Brazil's Eugenio de Araujo Sales told a friend last week. "We are simply going to have to look for one." During the hunt, new names kept cropping up on the list of papabili. For instance, Florence's Giovanni Benelli, 57, a kingmaker and a possible candidate himself, was heard by a Vatican insider to say he favors Albino Luciani, 65, of Venice, particularly because of their shared aversion to Communism. Carlo Confalonieri, who carries much weight among Italians, although he is too old to vote, agreed. Suddenly Luciani, heretofore seen as a remote compromise candidate, shot up on the lists.

Another Italian, Sicily's Salvatore Pappalardo, 59, was said to have picked up the backing of Belgium's progressive Leo Jozef Suenens. But the most mentioned Italians are Baggio and Pignedoli. On paper, Baggio's presumed backing appears formidable; it includes many Latin Americans, plus several votes, each, from Italy, Spain, Germany and the U.S. Pignedoli, long the most gregarious of Curialists, had the week's most active dinner table. Among his guests: Aloisio Lorscheider, president of the Latin American bishops' conference, and Tanzania's Laurean Rugambwa, who has influence among Africans as the first black Cardinal in modern times.

By choosing the latest possible start for the conclave, the Cardinals gave themselves ample time to size up one another, as they have already done to an unprecedented degree at various international meetings that stemmed from the Second Vatican Council. The delay also provides ample opportunity for the 80-and-over Cardinals to influence the conclave from which they are barred. The elders generally prefer a flags-flying conservative, but even the most prominent man in that camp, the Vatican's Pericle Felici, 67, is widely considered unelectable. So they would be likely to turn to a moderate who tilts slightly right --Baggio, for instance. One group of conservative electors made a pilgrimage last week to the quarters of Alfredo Ottaviani, 87, formerly the fearsome head of the Holy Office. Though blind, he has a razor-sharp memory for useful tidbits about various candidates.

For the moment, at least, the Cardinal most in the public eye is France's Jean Villot, the first non-Italian in modern times to be Camerlengo (Chamberlain) or interim administrator of the Vatican between Popes. Villot was Paul's Secretary of State, which theoretically made him the Vatican's virtual Prime Minister and eminently papabile. In fact, Curial Italians routinely bypassed the Frenchman and dealt with Benelli, who was nominally Villot's assistant until he assumed the Florence see. But an adroit performance as Camerlengo could make Villot, 72, an attractive compromise choice.

All Curial appointments cease when a Pope dies, but some work sputters on. The Congregation for Saints' Causes continued to investigate the sanctity of candidates last week, while Villot's former secretariat acknowledged the mountains of condolence messages. The usual Vatican postage stamps marked sede vacante (vacant see) were issued. A prized collector's item, they raise revenue that will help to offset the cost of the conclave (budgeted initially at $2 million).

The General Congregation established three commissions of three Cardinals apiece to deal with conclave credentials, technical preparations and election procedures. The Cardinals must also decide which non-Cardinals will live within the conclave walls. The secrecy-conscious Paul ordered strict limits. This time aides to Cardinals are barred but non-electors will nevertheless number to approximately 300 confessors, barbers, medical aides, maintenance men and nuns to prepare relatively simple meals. Trucks were already rumbling into the Vatican last week with sizable quantities of pasta and wine.

The ecclesiastical tailoring firm of Gammarelli, which has long prepared robes for the new Pope to wear in his first public appearance, was at work on white cassocks in four sizes (small, medium, large and extra large). It used to make only three sizes, but this time decided on four, using a confidential in-house list of ten Italians and two foreigners it thinks are the best candidates.

So thorough are the General Congregation's preparations for this conclave that Cardinals devoted 20 minutes last week to discussing whether ballots should be folded once or twice. The hope is that this meticulous preliminary work will speed the conclave, which will be a new experience for all but the eleven Cardinals who were at the 1963 conclave--three of whom also attended the 1958 conclave. Says one Vatican Cardinal: "We have got to get it over with as quickly as possible or it will create a very bad impression with the public," which will assume deep divisions exist.

As the preconclave lobbying proceeded, the American Cardinals were pressing the view that the new Pope would have to be capable of dealing with a situation unlike that faced by any of his predecessors in recent centuries. Said Washington's William Baum: "In the past, in much of Europe, for example, people have grown up in religious families and in societies with certain traditions. Now much of that is breaking down. The church will have to emphasize personal conversion." Baum is looking for a spiritual Pope first, not a politician. Catholicism, added Timothy Manning of Los Angeles, must recognize that "it has no political support in many places" and must depend on persuasion rather than power. Said Manning: "Remember the old Aesop fable about the contest between the sun and the wind over who could force the man to remove his coat? The wind nearly beat him to death, but he only clung on more tightly. Then the sun warmed him a bit, and he removed the coat. That is what the church must do in this era--change people through warmth."

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