Oxford University expert says its near impossible to predict outcome of papal conclave
Oxford University expert says "I would expect the next conclave to be a pretty quick one"
An expert at the University of Oxford says it’s near impossible to predict outcome of the papal conclave but expect the next Pope to be ‘fairly liberal’.
The Vatican has confirmed will begin tomorrow on 7 May, following the funeral of Pope Francis who died on Easter Monday aged 88.
The conclave is a secret and confidential process in how Cardinals, under the age of 80, elect the next Pope.
Dr Miles Pattenden is an historian of the Catholic Church at Oxford University with a special expertise in papal elections.
He said: “There have been some periods when it's been a really high pressure, urgent priority to select a new Pope as quickly as possible, and some conclaves have lasted as little as one day.
“There have also been other periods when the Cardinals have been much more relaxed about it, and the very longest conclaves in the Middle Ages went on for two years.
“I would expect the next conclave to be a pretty quick one. The trend over the 20th century was for them to get shorter, if anything. The average length for the last few decades has been about 3 days, and that's partly because the Cardinals recognise that the eyes of the whole world are looking on them.”
He added: “Politics is one of the axes that the Cardinals are going to think about when factoring things into their decisions.
“Some of them are more conservative. Many of them now are more progressive, especially after 12 years of Francis's pontificate because the Pope has an exclusive right to choose the Cardinals, and he chose a lot more Cardinals with his own set of values.
“So, we'd expect a fairly liberal conclave in that sense but we can't predict the outcome because there are lots of other factors.”
Dr Pattenden also says, “the basic idea of the secrecy goes back to the theology of the papal election. The idea of the election is that the Pope isn't actually chosen by the Cardinals at all. He's chosen by God speaking through the Holy Spirit.”