In final pre-conclave meetings, cardinals discuss war, dialogue

By Justin McLellan, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — With less than 48 hours until the beginning of the conclave, the cardinals who will enter the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope discussed war, the need for dialogue and the role of the pope in fostering it.

More than 170 cardinals, including 132 cardinals eligible to enter the conclave, met for two hours in the early evening May 5; it was the only time since Pope Francis died April 21 that they decided to add an evening session.

Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said about 20 cardinals spoke.

They discussed relations between ethnic groups within the church, migration as both a gift and a challenge for the church, the conflicts touching the cardinals’ home territories — particularly in Africa and parts of Asia — synodality and an ecclesiology of communion, Bruni told reporters.

“Reference was also made to the challenge represented by the spread of sects in various parts of the world,” the press office said in a statement.

Bruni said the cardinals also addressed the “obligation and responsibility of the cardinals to support the new pope.”

In terms of what qualities that pope should have, “a pope as a pastor was discussed,” Bruni said, “and with a perspective that goes beyond only the Catholic Church, particularly in a world in which all people are closer — therefore (working) toward dialogue and building relationships with different religious and cultural spheres.”

The May 5 evening session was scheduled to be penultimate general congregation meeting of cardinals. They were scheduled to meet once more the morning of May 6, and the conclave was scheduled to begin the following day.

Bruni said that about 100 people assisting with the conclave, clergy and laypeople, took their oath of secrecy about the conclave proceedings May 5.

Beginning May 6, the 133 cardinal electors expected to participate in the conclave will have access to their rooms in the Vatican guesthouses where they will stay during the conclave — the Domus Sanctae Marthae and the “old Casa Santa Marta” next door. They will begin spending the night there the evening of May 7.

The cardinals’ cell phones will be left at their temporary residences before the conclave, and they will have access to them again at the end of the conclave, Bruni said.