While younger cardinals are busy choosing the new pope in a series of votes in Vatican City, older cardinals — those age 80 and over who are not allowed to vote — are mostly waiting it out like the rest of us. But many of them attended the meetings that preceded the conclave, where cardinals spent days contemplating who should be their next pope, and they have thoughts.
An Italian cardinal, Gianfranco Ravasi, who is 82 and not voting in the conclave, said that he had been impressed by a speech made by Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille, France, who has emerged as a papal contender. Cardinal Aveline, who is learning Italian, read his speech in “perfect Italian,” Cardinal Ravasi said, adding, “He only got two accents wrong.”
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, 65, the archbishop of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, also a potential candidate, made a “finely tuned,” speech, Cardinal Ravasi said.
During the conclave, the cardinals stay at the Casa Santa Marta, a guesthouse in the Vatican. Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, an Italian who was an elector for Francis but, at 82, is not voting this year, said in an interview on Thursday that lunches and dinners there can be decisive. “At the table, you exchange opinions and assessments and you talk freely,” Cardinal Calcagno said.
Except for Wednesday, when the first ballot took place, the cardinals participate in four rounds of voting every day — two in the morning and two in the afternoon — until a candidate achieves a two-thirds majority. The ballots are burned up to twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and smoke emitted from a purpose-built chimney above the Sistine Chapel signals the result — black smoke for no decision, white if a pope has been chosen.
Cardinal Calcagno said that, in general, the first ballot is a “dress rehearsal” to see which names might have a shot. After that, “someone must let go of their first choice and move to someone else’s choice,” he said. “They assess the most-voted names, and based on that, they decide.”
Cardinal Calcagno said that cardinals do not get a midmorning or a midafternoon break. “It takes time to read the formula and take the oath,” he said. “The last thing we need is a coffee break.”
In the evening, while some of the cardinals decide to pray in the chapel, others walk around Casa Santa Marta and hang out with their peers. “You can meet cardinals from other nations, whom you hadn’t yet directly talked to, and get your thoughts straight,” Cardinal Calcagno said.
Emma Bubola is a Times reporter based in Rome.
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