By Justin McLellan , Catholic News Service
The 135 cardinals eligible to elect the next pope will enter the Sistine Chapel to begin the conclave May 7, the Vatican announced.
The cardinals will first celebrate the “Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff” in St Peter’s Basilica that morning before processing into the Sistine Chapel that evening.
The Vatican Museums announced that the Sistine Chapel would be closed to visitors beginning April 28 to allow preparations for the conclave to begin.
The preparations include the installation of a stove to burn the cardinals’ ballots and a chimney on the roof to signal the election results to the world.
The date for the conclave was set during the fifth general congregation meeting of cardinals April 28, Matteo Bruni, Director of the Holy See Press Office, told reporters at a briefing later that day.
The general congregation meeting was the first after a two-day pause to allow cardinals to participate in the funeral rites for Pope Francis.
More than 180 cardinals attended the April 28 meeting, including over 100 cardinal electors. During the session, about 20 cardinals offered reflections on the state of the church, its mission in the world, the challenges it faces and the qualities needed in the next pope, Bruni said.
Topics addressed included evangelisation, interfaith relations and the ongoing need to address clerical sexual abuse, he added.
Looking ahead to the next session, Bruni said the general congregation meeting April 29 would open with a reflection by Benedictine Father Donato Ogliari, abbot of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome and a member of the Dicastery for Bishops.
As cardinals entered the Vatican for the morning’s session, Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm was asked by reporters if he expected a long conclave. “I think it will be,” he said, “because up to now we don’t know each other.”
Meanwhile, Cardinal Walter Kasper, former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity who is past the age limit to vote in the conclave, told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that he hopes the cardinal-electors “come to a consensus on the next pope very soon, in the footsteps of Francis.”
When the conclave begins on Wednesday 7 May, there will be 117 cardinals who will not be allowed into the Sistine Chapel to take part in the voting process that chooses the next pope.
Because of reforms enacted by Pope Paul VI in 1970, cardinals who are age 80 or over when the pope dies are excluded from the closed-door proceedings.
In addition, a prelate who has retained his title as a cardinal but has lost or forfeited his rights as a cardinal cannot enter the conclave to vote.
This is the case as of 28 April with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 76, who was convicted in late 2023 by a Vatican court for financial malfeasance related to when he was substitute for the Vatican Secretariat of State.
Pope Francis had asked him in 2020 to resign from his Vatican position and to renounce the rights and privileges of being a cardinal.
Matteo Bruni, Director of the Vatican Press Office, told reporters on 28 April that Cardinal Becciu’s status, presumably including his desire to enter the conclave, was still under discussion by the College of Cardinals as a whole.
