Pope Francis has said that he was used in an “manoeuvre” to block the election of the future Benedict XVI during the 2005 conclave, but that he resisted the move and voted for Benedict himself.
The revelation comes in a new book about Pope Francis’ relationship with his predecessor,
“It was a complete manoeuvre. The idea was to block the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,” then Pope reveals in The Successor, which consists of an interview done by Spanish journalist Javier Martinez-Brocal with ABC Español. “In that conclave, the fact is known, they used me.”
On Sunday, ABC published an advanced chapter of the book, set for release in full on 3 April, titled “Conclave”, in which Pope Francis recounts events that transpired during April 18-19 in the 2005 conclave that elected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI after the death of John Paul II two weeks prior, on 2 April of that year.
While cardinals are sworn to secrecy on what happens during a conclave, Francis said “popes have license to tell it”, and went on to describe how during the conclave he himself started getting votes (to become the next pope), and that at one point, 40 of the 115 cardinals in the conclave had put his name forward.
Those 40 votes “were enough to stop the candidacy of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, because, if they had continued voting for me, he would not have been able to reach the two-thirds necessary to be elected pope,” Pope Francis explained.
Asked whether he could have been elected at that time, he said: “That was not the idea of those behind the votes.”
“The manoeuvre consisted of putting my name in, blocking the election of Ratzinger, and then negotiating a different, third candidate,” he said, adding that fellow cardinals informed him later “that they did not want a ‘foreign’ pope”.
“They used me, but behind them they were already thinking about proposing another cardinal. They still couldn’t agree on who, but they were already on the verge of throwing out a name,” he said.
Francis said this manoeuvre happened in the second or third round of voting, on the morning of 19 April, and that when he realised what was happening, he approached Colombian Cardinal Darío Castrillón, who passed away in 2018, and, as recounted in the book, said: “Don’t joke with my candidacy, because right now I’m going to say that I won’t accept, eh? Leave me there.”
“Then Benedict was elected,” he said, saying he himself voted for Ratzinger, who would become Pope Benedict XVI, because “he was the only one who at that time could be pope”.
After the “revolution” of the 27-year papacy of John Paul II, “who had been a dynamic pope, very active, with initiative” and who travelled widely, the Church, Francis said, needed “a pope who kept a healthy balance, a transitional pope”.
“If they had elected someone like me, who makes a lot of trouble, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything. At that time, it would not have been possible,” Pope Francis said, adding that he left the conclave happy, and that Benedict XVI fit “the new style” that the Church needed.
However, he noted that it was not an easy task for Benedict, who he said, “encountered a lot of resistance inside of the Vatican”.
Asked what the Holy Spirit was saying with Benedict’s election, Francis said the message was clear: “I rule here. There is no room for manoeuvres.”
Benedict XVI, who shocked the world with his historic resignation from the papacy in 2013, was often caricatured as an ideological opponent of Pope Francis, particularly over issues such as the Traditional Latin Mass, priestly celibacy, and various aspects of the Church’s moral theology.
Francis himself has repeatedly hit back against this notion, insisting he and his predecessor enjoyed a good relationship, and that Benedict was a “wise grandfather” in the Vatican whom he could go to for advice.
However, it has also been said that Pope Francis was unhappy with the narrative of “two popes” that developed after Benedict’s resignation, and that he sought in various ways to counter that until the death of Benedict on 31 Dec. 2022.
Pope Francis became the first pope in history to celebrate the funeral of his direct predecessor when he presided over Benedict’s funeral Mass on 5 Jan. 2023.
When it comes to the next conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, there have been suggestions that the papal electoral system should be slowed down to enable a more effective process and to help avoid undue influence from media and external forces.
@Catholic Herald, https://catholicherald.co.uk/pope-francis-reveals-he-was-used-in-manoeuvre-during-2005-conclave-to-prevent-benedicts-election/
