At Mass before the conclave, the dean of the College of Cardinals urged his brothers to choose the shepherd the Church and all of humanity need “at this difficult and complex and tormented” turning point in history. Source: CNS.
“Today’s world expects much from the Church regarding the safeguarding of those fundamental human and spiritual values without which human coexistence will not be better nor bring good to future generations,” Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the college, said in his homily.
He prayed that Mary would intercede, and the Holy Spirit would enlighten the cardinal electors “and help them agree on the pope that our time needs.”
The Mass in St Peter’s Basilica was the last public event before 133 cardinals from 71 countries entered the Sistine Chapel to elect the 267th pope and Pope Francis’s successor.
Cardinal Re, 91, presided over the Mass Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice (For the election of the Roman pontiff) with 220 other cardinals, including those aged over 80, who are not eligible to enter the conclave.
At the start of the Mass, as the choir sang verses of joy and thanks to the Lord from the Psalms, the cardinals processed up the main aisle of the basilica, wearing red vestments.
They listened as Cardinal Re underlined the seriousness of the task before them and the qualities every pope – the successor of St. Peter – must embody.
“We are here to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit, to implore his light and strength,” he said, “so that the pope elected may be he whom the Church and humanity need at this difficult and complex and tormented turning point in history.
“To pray, by invoking the Holy Spirit, is the only right and proper attitude to take as the cardinal electors prepare to undertake an act of the highest human and ecclesial responsibility and to make a choice of exceptional importance,” he said.
“This is a human act for which every personal consideration must be set aside, keeping in mind and heart only the God of Jesus Christ and the good of the Church and of humanity,” the cardinal warned.
The pre-conclave Mass and its readings invited the world’s cardinals “to fraternal love, to mutual help and to commitment to ecclesial communion and universal human fraternity,” he said.
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Choose the pope the world needs, dean urges cardinals before conclave (By Carol Glatz, CNS)
