By Justin McLellan, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The College of Cardinals confirmed that 135 members are eligible to participate in the conclave, the Vatican announced, and they asked the faithful to accompany them in prayer as they prepare to elect the next pope.
After their seventh general congregation meeting April 30, the College of Cardinals released a statement confirming that the conclave that begins May 7 will exceed the limit of 120 cardinal electors established by St. Paul VI and upheld by later popes.
Pope Francis, “in the exercise of his supreme power, dispensed of this legislative provision,” the statement said. Therefore, all 135 cardinals who are under the age of 80 and have not renounced the right to enter the conclave will have full voting rights.
Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, told reporters that two of the 135 cardinal electors will not be participating in the conclave due to health reasons. While he declined to name the two, the major Spanish newspaper, ABC, reported that one of them is 79-year-old Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, retired archbishop of Valencia, who said he is too ill to participate.
After their general congregation meeting, the College of Cardinals issued a separate statement asking the faithful to pray for them as they prepare for the conclave.
The College of Cardinals “wishes to invite the People of God to live this ecclesial moment as an event of grace and spiritual discernment, listening to the will of God,” it said. “For this reason, the cardinals, conscious of the responsibility to which they are called, feel the need to be supported by the prayers of all the faithful.”
“Faced with the enormity of the task ahead and the urgency of the present time, it is first of all necessary to make ourselves humble instruments of the infinite wisdom and providence of our heavenly Father, in docility to the action of the Holy Spirit,” it continued. “Indeed, he is the protagonist of the life of the People of God, the One to whom we must listen, accepting what he is saying to the church.”
Bruni said that more than 180 cardinals, of whom 124 are electors, participated in the general congregation meeting April 30.
Among other matters, the cardinals examined the financial situation of the Holy See. Speaking on that subject were Cardinals Reinhard Marx, coordinator of the Vatican Council for the Economy; Kevin J. Farrell, president of the Vatican Investment Committee; Christoph Schonborn, president of the supervisory commission of cardinals for the Vatican bank; Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, former president of the office governing Vatican City State; and Konrad Krajewski, papal almoner.
Bruni said 14 cardinals also took an opportunity to speak about the needs of the church and the world.
The topics included the “wound” of polarization in the church and division in society, the ecclesiology of the people of God, synodality, vocations to religious life and evangelization as the “correspondence between what is lived and what is proclaimed,” Bruni said.
The cardinals also issued a statement thanking Cardinal Angelo Becciu for stating that he would not participate in the conclave. He had forfeited the rights associated with being a cardinal after Pope Francis asked him to resign in 2020, but initially said he would try to join the cardinals in electing Pope Francis’ successor.
The cardinal, “having the good of the church at heart, and to contribute to the communion and serenity of the conclave, has communicated his decision not to participate in it,” the statement said. “In this regard, the congregation of cardinals expresses appreciation for the gesture he made and hopes that the competent organs of justice will be able to definitively ascertain the facts.”
Cardinal Becciu, 76, was convicted in late 2023 by a Vatican court on charges of embezzlement related to when he was substitute for the Vatican Secretariat of State. He is appealing his conviction.
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