Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from September, 2018

The Holy Spirit's October Surprise

SATURDAY OCTOBER 14      On the morning of the opening day of the second Conclave of 1978, as two of the 111 Cardinals were leaving the concelebrated Mass of the Holy Spirit, one said to the other, "We will not live to do this again."      The other replied, "That’s what we thought the last time."      By the time of their early evening procession into the sealed-off Conclave area, another pair of Cardinals had been tabbed by the press as "favorites" to succeed the late Pope John Paul as the 263rd successor of St. Peter: the Italians Giuseppe Cardinal Siri and Giovanni Cardinal Benelli.      Cardinal Siri, the 72 year old Archbishop of Genoa, had been a Cardinal for more than 25 years. He had proved himself to be a traditionalist, a conservative, a rabid anti-communist in his writings, his speeches and his interviews.      Cardinal Benelli, only 57, had worked at Pope Paul's right hand for a ...