2005 Conclave

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John Paul II †
Coat of arms of the Cardinal Chamberlain Eduardo Martínez Somalo during the Sedis vacancy
Benedict XVI.

The 2005 conclave was the electoral assembly of the cardinals to elect the successor to John Paul II and took place on April 18 and 19, 2005. It elected Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope , who named Benedict XVI. assumed.

General

As cardinal dean, Joseph Ratzinger summoned the cardinals to the conclave , which met in the Sistine Chapel on the afternoon of April 18, 2005 after a service he led in St. Peter's Basilica . Ratzinger delivered a widely acclaimed sermon directed against materialism and relativism . The papal election took place for the first time according to the new electoral regulations, which Pope John Paul II had stipulated in 1996 in the apostolic letter Universi Dominici Gregis .

As with the previous conclaves in August 1978 and October 1978 , only cardinals were entitled to vote who had not yet reached the age of 80 on the day of the Pope's death, April 2, 2005. Of the 117 eligible voters, Jaime Lachica Sin and Adolfo Antonio Suárez Rivera were unable to attend due to illness. At 115, the 2005 conclave had more participants than any before.

With the exception of Joseph Ratzinger and William Wakefield Baum , all participants had been appointed cardinals by John Paul II. The cardinal protodeacon , who traditionally announces the end of the conclave and the name of the new Pope, was Jorge Arturo Medina Estévez .

As papabile were before the conclave, Joseph Ratzinger, Carlo Maria Martini , Camillo Ruini , Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Angelo Sodano .

During the vacancy from April 2, 2005 to April 19, 2005, the above-mentioned offices were held by the following persons:

Participating cardinals

The following 115 cardinals participated in the 2005 conclave (listed in alphabetical order):

Eligible to vote but absent due to illness:

Of the 115 cardinals in this conclave, 58 came from Europe, Latin America was represented by 20 cardinals, North America (excluding Mexico) with 14, Africa with 11, Asia with 10 and Oceania and the Middle East each with one. The cardinals were distributed among the countries as follows:

Regional composition of the conclave
country Cardinals entitled to vote
Italy 20th
United States 11
Germany , Spain 06 each
France 05
Brazil , Mexico 04 each
India , Canada , Colombia , Poland 0 3 each
Chile , Japan , Nigeria , Philippines , Portugal , Ukraine , Hungary , United Kingdom 02 each
Argentina , Australia , Belgium , Bolivia , Bosnia-Herzegovina , Dominican Republic , Ivory Coast , Ghana , Guatemala , Honduras , Indonesia , Ireland , Cameroon , Democratic Republic of the Congo , Croatia , Cuba , Latvia , Lithuania , Madagascar , Netherlands , New Zealand , Nicaragua , Austria , Peru , South Africa , Sudan , Switzerland , Syria , Tanzania , Thailand , Czech Republic , Uganda , Vietnam 01 each

Election process

Ballots

With 115 eligible voters, the required two-thirds majority was 77 votes. Four ballots were necessary for the election. The end of this was announced by the traditional smoke signals from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel (black smoke if no majority was found, white smoke if the election was successful). Black smoke was visible on April 18 shortly after 8:00 p.m. and on April 19 at around 11:50 a.m. (common for the second and third ballots). White smoke announced on April 19 at around 5:50 p.m. that a new Pope had been elected. At first it wasn't clear whether it was white or black smoke. The Dutch Cardinal Adrianus Johannes Simonis explained that there had been problems with the ignition of the ballot papers. Shortly afterwards the bells of St. Peter's Basilica rang . With a duration of around 26 hours, this election was the shortest in recent church history after the conclave of 1939 , which after three ballots for the election of Pius XII. led. The election, and in particular the rising smoke, attracted a great deal of media interest and attracted around 100,000 believers to gather in St. Peter's Square .

Course and outcome

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, as subdean of the College of Cardinals, was asked: Acceptasne electionem de te canonice factam in Summum Pontificem? ("Do you accept your canonical election as Pope?"). The Chilean cardinal protodeacon Jorge Arturo Medina Estévez announced at 6:41 p.m. that a new Pope had been elected. The full formula was in Latin:

“Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum. Habemus Papam: Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Iosephum, Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Ratzinger, qui sibi nomen imposuit Benedicti Decimi Sexti. "

“I announce great joy to you. We have a Pope: His Eminence, Most Revered Mr. Joseph, of the Holy Roman Church Cardinal Ratzinger, who has given himself the name Benedict the Sixteenth. "

(Although the form Benedictum would have been intended for "Benedikt", Benedicti is also correct Latin in the function of a Genitivus Explicativus.)

At 6:48 p.m. the new Pope appeared for the first time on the Benediction Loggia of St. Peter's Church and addressed the following words - in Italian - to the people gathered in St. Peter's Square:

“Dear sisters and brothers! After a great Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals chose me, a simple and humble worker in the Lord's vineyard. I am comforted by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act with insufficient tools. Above all, I confide in your prayers. In the joy of the risen Lord and trusting in His everlasting help, we go forward. The Lord will help us and Mary, His Most Blessed Mother, will be with us. Thank you."

He then donated the papal blessing Urbi et orbi .

In contrast to his predecessor, the elected Cardinal Ratzinger had already been treated as one of several candidates (" papabili ") in advance . At the time of the election he was already 78 years old. At first, no precise information was known about the exact course of the election, in particular about the number of votes with which Ratzinger was elected. According to reports shortly after the election, he achieved over 100 votes and was able to gather most of the 115 cardinals behind him. The Vienna Archbishop Christoph Cardinal Schönborn declared that there had been no dispute over the direction of the conclave. On September 23, 2005, however, the Italian TV broadcaster RAI reported that 84 cardinals had voted for Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in the papal election on April 19, 2005. The station cited the diary of an anonymous member of the conclave as the source. The second place is said to have taken the Argentine Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio , who eight years later became Benedict's successor as Pope Francis.

The diary records break down the distribution of votes as follows:

Distribution of votes in the conclave 2005
cardinal April 18 April 19
I. II III IV
Ratzinger 47 65 72 84
Bergoglio 10 35 40 26th
Sodano 04th 04th
Tettamanzi 02 02
Martini 09
Ruini 06th
...

Public echo

The election of Benedict XVI. was received differently in the media. The British tabloids , traditionally critical of Germany and Catholicism, viewed Ratzinger particularly negatively as "Panzerkardinal" or "God's Rottweiler" and raised allegations against him because he was forced into the Hitler Youth in 1941 at the age of 14 in accordance with the " youth service obligation" ordained by law on March 25, 1939 has been recorded. These Nazi allegations were promptly rejected by the Jerusalem Post . The term “Papa Ratzi”, on the other hand, is generally used lovingly. The Turkish press saw in the new Pope predominantly an "enemy of Turkey". Image titled ambiguously patriotic: “ We are Pope! On the front page of the taz , on the other hand, the exclamation "Oh, my God!" also believed in more conciliatory tones. As a sign of this, among other things, the choice of name Benedict as a reference to the "Pope of Peace" Benedict XV. and Saint Benedict seen as the patron saint of Europe, but also the gestures towards the Jewish community and towards the other Christian churches.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Universi Dominici Gregis No. 33: "The right to elect the Roman Pope belongs only to the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, with the exception of those who did this before the day of the death of the Pope or the day of the vacancy of the Apostolic See Have passed the age of 80. " vatican.va
  2. ↑ vatican.va
  3. ↑ The power blocs of the universal church - and their candidates. Der Spiegel 13/2005, March 26, 2005, accessed on January 19, 2019 .
  4. ^ La Repubblica , report of April 21, 2005.
  5. ↑ See for example: Il diario segreto dell'ultimo conclave, La Stampa of July 27, 2011, accessed on July 27, 2011.
  6. ^ The "forbidden" diary of the conclave 2005. In: www.katholisches.info. July 28, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Jerusalem Post: Ratzinger a Nazi? Don't believe it, April 18, 2005 edition
  8. ↑ the daily newspaper: Oh, my God !; Edition of April 20, 2005