Cardinals Will Mourn Quietly as Media Is Shown Door

Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church imposed a gag order on themselves Saturday as they turned their attention to the formidable task of choosing a successor to Pope John Paul II.

Meanwhile, Rome began to return to normality with the departure of hundreds of thousands of mourners from across the world who had packed the city for the pontiff’s funeral Friday.

The meeting to select a new pope, known as a conclave, will start April 18, after nine days of official mourning known as the novendiali, featuring daily funeral Masses at St. Peter’s Basilica. The service Saturday was led by Italian Cardinal Francesco Marchisano. The official mourning concludes just before the conclave, a secret meeting in which the cardinals will be sequestered primarily in the Sistine Chapel.

On Saturday, the cardinals “began a more intense period of silence and prayer, in view of the conclave,” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said at a news conference.

He said 130 cardinals who attended a preparatory session Saturday known as a general congregation voted unanimously to cease interviews and “encounters” with the media.

Navarro-Valls asked journalists not to pester the “princes” of the church.

“This invitation should not be seen as an attitude of discourtesy or disinterest with regards to the media,” he added, “but rather as a gesture of great responsibility.”

Italian newspapers reported that German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the conservative dean of the College of Cardinals who is often mentioned as a possible candidate for the papacy, was behind the ban.

In the last few days, numerous cardinals had readily spoken to journalists to eulogize John Paul and to discuss, at least in general terms, the future of the church. Newspapers and other media all over the world have been packed with speculation on who will be the next pope and how the cardinals will reach their decision. The enormous outpouring of reverence for John Paul has heightened the pressure to choose the ideal man.

The news blackout will likely only add to the speculation. During the last conclave, in 1978, no such order was imposed because it wasn’t deemed necessary. At the time, cardinals did not talk to the media very often.

Several journalists Saturday found previously scheduled interviews abruptly canceled.

“Cardinals who had already agreed to give interviews or who had already answered written [questions] and had not delivered it, have been asked to withhold those interviews and not send them,” Marin Berker, the secretary for German Cardinal Karl Lehmann, said in a note faxed to the Los Angeles Times.

Lehmann described the period between John Paul’s funeral and the conclave as a time for newer cardinals to get to know each other and veteran colleagues.

“As far as I see there are no clear favorites and there are probably no established alliances,” Lehmann, 69, told the Frankfurt newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung in comments published Saturday. “It will be necessary to reach a consensus through votes, contacts and agreements.”

He added that the next pope did not have to be a photocopy of John Paul.

“Skin color, nationality and origins will play much less of a role,” Lehmann said.

Several American cardinals Friday had said they would cease interviews with the press.

“The next nine days will be a period of prayer,” Cardinal Justin Regali of Philadelphia said. “Now it’s a matter of intense prayer, hoping God will give us light and strength. The cardinals [find] themselves in deep reflection and discussion on exercising their responsibility at this time.”

To some degree, front-runners might benefit from the media blackout because other cardinals would have less of a chance to get publicity. At the same time, cardinals from smaller countries might be boosted because they otherwise couldn’t compete for attention with cardinals from nations with big media.

Father Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit magazine America, said different cardinals had different reasons for wanting to go silent.

“The cardinals look at themselves as the owners of a restaurant,” he said. “They’re going to present you with a beautiful meal -- whoever the pope is -- but they don’t want to invite you back into the kitchen. They don’t want you to lose your appetite.”

On another matter, Navarro-Valls said any decision on rushing the canonization of John Paul, as many in the huge funeral crowd Friday demanded, would be up to the next pope.

Two cardinals among the 117 eligible to vote, by virtue of being under the age of 80, are too ill to travel to Rome and will not participate, Navarro-Valls said. They are Jaime Sin of the Philippines and Alfonso Antonio Suarez Rivera of Mexico.

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Key events

Date

April 2: Pope dies

April 3: Body lies in state

April 4: Public viewing

April 5: Public viewing

April 6: Public viewing

April 7: Public viewing

April 8: Funeral and burial; mourning period begins

April 9: Second Mass for John Paul; Cardinals vote to maintain public silence regarding successor

Today: Third Mass scheduled

April 11--16: Daily Masses scheduled

April 18: Conclave to select a pope begins. The voting could take days or weeks.

Source: Times reporting