Discalced Franciscan Does Penance at St. Peter’s During the Conclave

Credit: radiocristianidad

Edit: a lone pilgrim was praying in the rain in St. Peter’s square on a sewer grate while curious passers by watched (some joined him in prayer, and one priest even offered him grapes).  After finishing his prayers, he would go back to Assisi, to sleep outside there in the portico of the church.  Being interviewed by one journalist, he spoke of the end times.  Yet another journalist, interviewed the Friar and recorded his thoughts:

"Now times are very difficult for the church," said Massimo Coppo, who for more than 30 years has devoted his life to prayer and penitence for the church, following the example, he said, of St. Francis of Assisi.

Coppo arrived in Rome early Tuesday on the train from Assisi, where he is part of a community dedicated to St. Francis – and reforming the church. He's become something of a fixture at St. Peter's, but usually takes the train back to Assisi at night, where he sleeps under the porticos of the basilica.

"Tonight, I think I will stay," Coppo said, thanking a young priest who pressed a bag of grapes and crackers into his gnarled hands. "Here it is a mission of praying." He'd chosen his spot, kneeling atop the sewer drain, because, he explained, "When Francis came here to meet the pope, the story says that he also stayed in a stable with animals. So I want to stay here, as a sign of penance and also in prayer, so that our church may be clean and restored."

When I asked the question that is nearly ubiquitous in Rome at the moment – who would he like to see elected pope – Coppo skipped names and went straight to description.

"To me, I hope it will be a pope who is poor or who understands the poor. Many people are poor and becoming poor," he said. "A pope that speaks of eternity – of paradise – and even of hell in a world that doesn't like it.

"The revolutionary approach of Francis to poverty and suffering is the approach of the apostles, of the Bible," the soft-spoken pilgrim continued. "Sometimes, part of the church wants to please the world. It's not possible.”

The full story is here...

The Conclave to Begin on the 11th of March -- 115 Electors as in 2005

(Vatican) The Swiss Guard was removed, the window of the papal apartment remained closed on Sunday. In St. Peter's Square in Rome no public Angelus was recited. Believers prayed yesterday the Rosary and the Angelus by themselves on the main square of  Christendom. During worship the Pope and Bishop of Rome is no longer mentioned in the Eucharistic Prayer. Since this morning, 9.30  the first General Congregation of the Sacred College has been meeting for the beginning of the interregnum.

Many cardinals have yet to meet in Rome. Once the number is correct, they will decide the start of the papal election. There are signs, however, everything indicates that the Conclave will be brought forward by a few days, and will begin on Monday, 11 March. The earliest possible start would have been 15th March at the earliest.  In a short time before his resignation, Benedict XVI. enacted a Motu Proprio to enable the cardinals, when completely assembled, to set an earlier date.

They will make use of it. The Cardinals will be celebrating Holy Mass in a week in the morning in St. Peter’s,  Pro eligendo Romano Pontifice, celebrated by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Dean of Cardinals. Afterwards, the papal electors, the College of Cardinals will issue in procession and the invocation of the Holy Spirit with the Pentecostal hymn Veni Creator Spiritus in the Sistine Chapel, where they will be enclosed until the election of a new pope and hermetically sealed from the outside world.

As with  2005, the 2013 conclave of 117 cardinals has  exactly 115 who will participate. This is the highest number of papal electors in Church history. At least 77 votes will be required for the election of the new Pope.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Vatican Insider

Link to original, at katholisches...