Cardinals Prepare to Meet to Plan Conclave

ROME – Catholics’ thoughts turned to who might replace their beloved pope as the cardinals, silenced by an unprecedented pledge to not reveal their thinking, prepared to meet again Monday to plan next week’s conclave to select a new leader.

One of the cardinals who celebrated Masses around Rome on Sunday gently asked the faithful to stop speculating on possible successors to Pope John Paul II.

“Let us not be uselessly and too humanly curious to know ahead of time who (the next pope) will be,” said Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the late pope’s vicar for Rome, who presided over a packed, late afternoon Mass for the pontiff at St. Peter’s Basilica – a daily rite being held over nine official days of mourning for John Paul.

“Let us instead prepare to receive in prayer, trust and love he whom the Lord chooses to give us,” said Ruini, who co-celebrated the Mass with Krakow’s Cardinal Franciszek Macharski.

Still, the papal successor was on the minds of the few pilgrims who braved the rain to wander about St. Peter’s Square as they shopped around for photographs, calendars and other souvenirs with images of John Paul.

“I’d be happy if he’s not Italian,” said Romina Abbadini, 35, from San Benedetto del Tronto, in central Italy. “Who would have ever known that a Polish pope could do so much for his country? Maybe a South American pope would do so much for those countries.”

Angela Langedijk, a Dutch woman who lives in Zurich and develops courses for doctors at Zurich University, made the case for an African pope.

“I think it would give Africa the chance to show something of its culture that it can’t show now, and I think it would be good since most Catholics aren’t white and we’ve always had a white pope,” she said.

The names of those emerging as possible papal successor include contenders from Latin America, such as Cardinal Claudio Hummes of Brazil and Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, and a Vatican official from Africa: Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria.

Europeans mentioned include Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Austria and German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Italian “papabili” include Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re.

But John Paul remained uppermost in the minds of many in St. Peter’s as they glanced forlornly at the window overlooking the square from where the pope traditionally greeted the faithful Sundays throughout his 26-year pontificate.

“Something is missing, I was so used to seeing him,” said Daniele Paoli, a 32-year-old computer specialist who lives near the Vatican.

Vatican officials were expected to announce Monday when the grotto beneath the basilica holding John Paul’s body would reopen. Keeping it shut was seen as a way to empty the Eternal City of the millions of pilgrims who converged on the capital for the pope’s funeral.

Cardinals presided over Masses in Rome on Sunday. But they said little, in keeping with their decision to stop speaking publicly and giving interviews ahead of the conclave to elect a new pope.

Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston, was scheduled to celebrate Monday’s daily Mass of mourning in St. Peter’s Basilica, and leaders of the advocacy group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said they were flying to Rome to protest, saying Law’s presence was painful to clergy sexual abuse victims and embarrassing to Catholics.

Law resigned as archbishop of Boston in December 2002 after unsealed court records revealed he had allowed priests guilty of abusing children to move among parish assignments and had not notified the public.

Vatican security was preparing the Sistine Chapel for the papal election, taking undisclosed measures to thwart would-be hackers or electronic eavesdroppers from listening in on the cardinals’ private deliberations and getting early word of who the next pope might be.

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Associated Press writer Vanessa Gera in Rome contributed to this story.