"As the voting process gradually…"
An extract of Benedict XVI's speech on April 25, in the original German, and in the English translation of the Italian version that appeared in "L’Osservatore Romano" on April 27
As the voting process gradually showed me that the guillotine, so to speak, was to fall on me, my head began to spin. I was convinced that I had done my life's work and that I could hope to end my days in tranquility. With profound conviction I said to the Lord: do not do this to me! You have younger and more talented people who are able to face this great task with a completely different kind of approach and strength. Then I was deeply touched by a brief letter that had been written to me by one of my fellow members of the college of cardinals. He reminded me that on the occasion of the mass for John Paul II, I had centered the homily, using the Gospel as my point of departure, on what the Lord said to Peter at the lake of Gennesaret: follow me! I had explained how Karol Wojtyla had always received anew this call from the Lord, and how he had always needed to renounce much and say simply: yes, I will follow you, even if you lead me where I would not have wished to go. This cardinal wrote to me: If the Lord now says to you "follow me," remember what you preached. Do not refuse! Be obedient, just as you spoke of our great pope who has returned to the house of the Father. This moved me deeply. The ways of the Lord are not comfortable, but we are not created for comfort, but for great things, for the sake of the good. So, in the end, I could do nothing other than say yes...
What Really Happened at the Conclave
Benedict XVI's account: the guillotine, the dizziness… The microculture typical of the conclave. How the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel affected the cardinals. The sign of Jonah
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, May 2, 2005 – In the days immediately following the conclave, the press went berserk providing adventurous reconstructions of the voting, one scrutiny after another.
Placed side by side, most of the reconstructions cancel each other out. But some of them agree – though they differ about the name – in maintaining that during the first scrutinies a strong alternative candidate was offered next to Joseph Ratzinger. So strong, in fact, that this other pulled ahead of Ratzinger for a while.
But Benedict XVI himself soon put an end to these ruminations.
He did so while speaking with some German pilgrims, on the morning of Monday, April 25. Recounting how he had experienced the conclave, he said:
"As the voting process gradually showed me that the guillotine, so to speak, was to fall on me, my head began to spin…"
Further down you will find the pope's complete account, both in the original German version, which was immediately published by the Vatican press office, and in the English translation of the Italian version that appeared two days later in "L'Osservatore Romano."
But Benedict XVI's account of his own election is of special interest because it sheds light on the very particular atmosphere that is created among the cardinals in a conclave. This atmosphere plays a prominent part in the dynamics of choosing the new pope.
A conclave is a unique event. "Do not underestimate the power of the microculture that is generated among the cardinals when they are together," Alejandro Bermúdez, an insightful expert on Vatican affairs, told "The New York Times" on April 17. Mr. Bermúdez, a Peruvian, is director of the international online news agencies "AciPrensa" and "Catholic News Agency."
This microculture can already be seen in the gatherings that the cardinals hold every day after the funeral ceremonies for the deceased pope. But it reaches its zenith after the doors of the conclave are closed.
The place in which the conclave is held, the Sistine Chapel, is of extreme importance.
The chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who began its construction in 1475. Under his nephew, Giuliano della Rovere, who as Julius II was pope from 1503 to 1513, Michelangelo painted the frescoes in the vault. The Judgment was painted two decades later, again by Michelangelo. The first pope elected in the Sistine Chapel was Leo X, in 1513. Then there was Urban VIII, in 1623, and then twelve other popes up to 1775, and finally all the pontiffs from 1878 until today: twenty-four in all.
John Paul II dedicated to the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, as seen by a participant at a conclave, the second poetic meditation of his "Roman Triptych," published in 2003.
Ratzinger, then a cardinal, wrote the preface to this work:
"The memory of the conclaves of August and October, 1978, emerges in the interior vision of the pope. I was also there, so I know well how we were exposed to those images during the hours of that momentous decision, how those images probed us, how a sense of our great responsibility worked its way into our souls. The pope is speaking to the cardinals of the future conclave, and is saying that the vision of Michelangelo speaks to them. The word ‘con-clave’ brings to his mind the idea of the keys, the inheritance of the keys left to Peter. To place these keys into the right hands: this is the immense responsibility during such days…"
Last April 18, when the 115 cardinal electors, accompanied by the chanting of the litany of the saints, processed from the Sala Regia into the Sistine Chapel, they immediately saw the Judgment on the wall before them. And above this was the imposing figure of the prophet Jonah, who is watching while God separates the light from the darkness, the first act of creation.
Then the cardinals took an oath of silence, with Jonah and the Judgment still before them.
Then they listened to a meditation read by one of the cardinals past the age of 80, Tomás Spidlík, a great master of spiritual theology and a learned interpreter of the Christian art of both East and West.
Then they prayed and, finally, they prepared to vote. All this took place within the frescoed walls and vaults of the Sistine Chapel.
In the Sistine Chapel, the entire collection of images – including those created prior to Michelangelo's frescoes – explains the divine origin of the power of the keys given to Peter and his successors. They are the keys that open the Kingdom of Heaven.
But the dominant figure of Jonah, which Pope Julius II entrusted to the genius of Michelangelo, says much more.
Jonah is the prophet sent by God to preach conversion to the pagans. He goes, reluctantly, but rebels when God has mercy on the repentant city of Nineveh. In the vault of the Sistine Chapel, he sees that sin accompanies the history of man ever since the flood, and before that, since the days of Adam and Eve. As an upright man, he wants the sinner to be punished. But then his gaze is fixed upon the very first act of God, who is creating the light. And he understands that God cannot bear to lose anything, but wants only to save everything that he has made ever since the beginning of the world.
The "sign of Jonah" of which Jesus speaks in Matthew 12:40, therefore, impinges upon the cardinals who are gathered to elect the successor of Peter. Like Jonah, Peter and the popes after him are also sent by Jesus to preach conversion and penance to men because "the Kingdom of God is at hand." These are the keys of Peter; this is the power of the Church. It is a power that is derived from the creative act of God and is revealed fully at the end, in the Judgment of Christ upon men and upon the world.
"To place these keys into the right hands: this is the immense responsibility…" Looking upon the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, the cardinals realize that their choice does not regard only the Church, but also the entire world, both present and future.
They see Christ, the Judge. But if they took just a few steps, to the Antiquarium del Belvedere created in the Vatican by Pope Julius II with the Greek and Roman statues he had discovered, they would notice that Christ the Judge, as depicted by Michelangelo, has the body of Laocoon and the face of Apollo.
And if they were to enter the Stanza della Segnatura, near the Sistine Chapel, they would see the pagan philosophers of the "School of Athens" – painted by Raphael, again at the behest of Julius II – walking toward the altar of the "Disputation of the Most Holy Sacrament," which Raphael himself frescoed on the front wall: an image of the earthly and heavenly Church, with the Eucharist at the center.
The art of Renaissance Rome had its golden age during the few years of Giuliano della Rovere's pontificate, and in the modest space within and around the Sistine Chapel. The cardinals who are enclosed within this space to elect a new bishop of Rome cannot help but be influenced by this. They cannot but be inundated by the extraordinary communicative, religious, and political power of the art that surrounds them.
This is part of what makes up the microculture that distinguishes a conclave. The election of Benedict XVI emerged, in part, from this.
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