by emad » Sat Sep 24, 2005 11:27 am
By Phil Stewart <br><br>ROME, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope in April after his closest rival in the conclave, a cardinal from Argentina, indicated he did not want the responsibility, according to a secret account published by a magazine on Friday. <br><br>Respected Italian magazine Limes said details of the closed-door voting inside the frescoed Sistine Chapel come from the diary of an unnamed cardinal. <br><br>The 115 cardinals who entered the conclave on April 18 took a vow of "absolute and perpetual secrecy" not to reveal details of the election and the Vatican did not comment on the report. <br><br>If true, the diary would show that Pope Benedict was elected with fewer votes than those attributed to his predecessor, John Paul II, and that Latin America was closer than previously thought to having its first pope. <br><br>Ratzinger went into the conclave as clear front runner among the conservative candidates with former Milan archbishop Carlo Maria Martini expected to be the moderates' standard bearer. <br><br>But instead, Buenos Aires Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a 68-year-old Jesuit known for his humility, emerged as the main liberal candidate, the diary showed, winning the backing of 10 cardinal electors against 47 votes in favour of Ratzinger. <br><br>Martini took 9 votes, according to the diary, with the remaining votes shared out sparsely between other cardinals. <br><br>On the following morning, Ratzinger garnered 65 votes and Bergoglio 35. Again, no other cardinal got into double figures. <br><br><br>"DON'T DO THIS TO ME" <br><br>By the third round of voting, support for Bergoglio had climbed to 40 votes, enough to block Ratzinger, who at that stage fell 5 votes short of the two-thirds majority of 77 votes needed to become Pope. <br><br>"The outcome of the conclave seemed open still, for a few hours, after the third vote on Tuesday morning," the diary said. <br><br>"(There was) great concern among the cardinals who are seeking Ratzinger's election," it said. <br><br>However, during the conclave, the diary suggested that Bergoglio appeared to dread the prospect of becoming pope. <br><br>"I watch him (Bergoglio) as he goes to cast his ballot at the altar of the Sistine Chapel. He has his gaze fixed on the image of Jesus, judging souls at the end of time. His face, suffering, as if pleading: 'God don't do this to me'," it said. <br><br>The diary said that Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo -- prominent among Latin American cardinals -- took advantage of a break after the third vote to persuade Bergoglio's supporters to throw their support behind Ratzinger. <br><br>In the fourth and final round of voting, Ratzinger was elevated to the papacy with 84 votes -- less than the 99 votes thought to have been cast for Pope John Paul in 1978. <br><br>The diary did not say which cardinals switched their votes to Ratzinger or what their motivation was. <br><br><br>DIE IN THE CURIA <br><br>Historians say cardinals in the conclave often line up behind the apparent front runner as the voting goes on -- preferring consensus to protracted confrontation. <br><br>One Italian newspaper on Friday suggested that Bergoglio might have been afraid of going head-to-head with Ratzinger, a powerful conservative who defended Catholic orthodoxy at the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. <br><br>The diary also suggested that some cardinals had expressed concern over a "conflict of interest" at the conclave -- with Ratzinger both the influential dean of the College of Cardinals and a leading papal candidate. <br><br>Long before the conclave, Bergoglio had shown reluctance to take up a prominent role within the Vatican. When being mentioned as a possible head of an important Vatican department, he pleaded: "Please, I would die in the Curia." <br><br> <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nL23581012">today.reuters.com/busines...nL23581012</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
