http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1453459,00.html Date set for conclave to pick next pope
Mark Oliver and agencies Wednesday April 6, 2005 The Vatican will convene the conclave of cardinals that will elect a new pope in a secret ballot on April 18, it said today. The announcement came after the college of cardinals met in private for a third day of pre-conclave talks. Meanwhile pilgrims continued to pour into Rome to witness the pageantry ahead of Pope John Paul II's funeral on Friday. The Vatican spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, also revealed that the cardinals had read John Paul's 15-page spiritual testament, which was written at different stages of his pontificate. In the testament, Mr Navarro-Valls said, the Pope did not name the mystery cardinal he created in 2003, ending speculation that this cardinal might join the conclave at the last minute. John Paul said he had named a secret cardinal and held his name "in pectore", or in the heart, a formula that has been used when a pope wants to appoint a cardinal in a country where the church is oppressed. The text of the Pope's spiritual testament will be released to the public tomorrow. Vatican officials have given no indication of what else might be among the late pontiff's final papers. The reading of John Paul's last writings is, however, unlikely to influence the choice of the cardinals, who will cast ballots for the next leader of the world's 1 billion Catholics. According to church rules, the conclave to elect a new pope must occur between 15 and 20 days after a pontiff's death. April 18 will be 16 days after the Pope's death, on Saturday April 2. The number of cardinal electors - those under 80 are eligible to vote - today stood at 116 after the Philippines embassy to the Holy See confirmed that Cardinal Jaime Sin, 76, was too ill to attend. Cardinal Sin was one of only three cardinal electors who also took part in the 1978 conclave to elect John Paul. In a major change to a centuries-old practice, the Vatican said it planned to ring bells in addition to sending up white smoke to announce that a new pope had been chosen. Black smoke coming from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel signals that no decision has been made after a papal ballot while white smoke means a pope has been elected. In the past, it has sometimes been hard to tell whether the smoke from the Vatican chimney is white or black. "This time we plan to ring the bells to make the election of the Pope clearer," Archbishop Piero Marini said yesterday. In another change from past papal elections, cardinals voting in the conclave will have access to all of Vatican City during the election rather than just the Sistine Chapel. Mourners today continued to stream past John Paul's crimson-robed remains at the rate of around 600,000 a day in an almost round-the-clock procession through St Peter's Basilica. The crush of pilgrims on the road leading to the Vatican is expected to rise sharply when an expected 2 million Poles arrive in Rome for the funeral of the Polish-born pontiff. Pilgrims stood today in a queue more than a mile long for around 12 hours in chilly, pre-dawn temperatures for a brief glimpse of the Pope's body. The Italian authorities are calling extra police in to Rome and plan to seal off much of the city on Friday to protect a VIP contingent that will include some 200 world leaders, among them the US president, George Bush, the prime minister, Tony Blair, and the Prince of Wales, who delayed his wedding until Saturday in order to attend the funeral. -- Cheers, Gabe Menezes. London, England