Monday, September 4, 2017

Revealed: How One British Cardinal Fixed Vatican Conclave For His Friend Pope Francis

Murphy-O’Connor had been dismayed when Pope Benedict XVI was elected at the previous conclave and was determined to avoid another conservative Pope.

Times of Ahmad | News Watch | UK Desk
Source/Credit: The Telegraph UK
By Robert Mendick | September 3, 2017

It is a tale every bit as intriguing as the plot of Conclave, Robert Harris’s best-selling thriller set during a fictitious papal election.

For it has emerged that Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the former Catholic archbishop of Westminster who died last week, intervened in the last Conclave to ensure his friend was elected Pope Francis.

In the days before the 2013 vote, Murphy-O’Connor co-hosted a reception at the British embassy in Rome to lobby support for Cardinal Bergoglio, the then progressive archbishop of Buenos Aires.

According to a new book, Murphy-O’Connor invited cardinals from the Commonwealth but deliberately left off the invitation list two powerful but conservative clerics - Cardinal Ouellet from Canada, who had been a frontrunner, and Cardinal Pell from Australia.

The plan, which succeeded, was to persuade the cardinals of the need for a liberal pope without interference from the senior conservatives.

The book by Catherine Pepinster, the former editor of The Tablet, details how embassy officials left the room to allow Murphy-O’Connor time to persuade the cardinals of the importance of voting for Bergoglio.

Murphy-O’Connor had been dismayed when Pope Benedict XVI was elected at the previous conclave and was determined to avoid another conservative Pope.


Read original post here: Revealed: How One British Cardinal Fixed Vatican Conclave For His Friend Pope Francis 


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