Pope Francis has exposed the political “maneuvers” used to sway votes during the two most recent elections of popes in a book-length interview.
FILE - Pope Francis, left, and Pope Benedict XVI, meet each other on the occasion of the elevation of five new cardinals at the Vatican, on June 28, 2017. Pope Francis has exposed the political maneuvers to sway votes during the past two conclaves and denied he is planning to reform the process to elect a pope in a new book-length interview published Tuesday April 2, 2024.
Francis said he put an end to the maneuvering by announcing that he wouldn’t accept being pope, after which Ratzinger was elected. The Spanish cardinal had what was clearly a health-related question about Bergoglio's ability to take on the physical rigors of the papacy, after opponents apparently had raised his health as a possible impediment to his election.
Conservative media have speculated, without any attribution, that Francis was tinkering with the protocols to limit pre-conclave discussions about the needs of the church to cardinals aged under 80. Only those cardinals — most of whom were appointed by Francis — are able to vote for the next pope, but older colleagues are currently allowed to take part in the earlier discussions.
In the book, Francis also settles some scores with Benedict’s longtime secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, whom he initially fired and thenGaenswein is widely believed to have helped fuel the anti-Francis opposition during Benedict's decade-long retirement, allowing Benedict to be used by conservatives nostalgic for his doctrinaire papacy. He was behind some of the biggest hiccups in the unusual cohabitation of two popes.
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