“Workforce Bergoglio”
In his guide “The Nice Reformer,” Francis’ biographer Austen Ivereigh described the 2013 election of Francis and the way Nichols’ predecessor, Murphy-O’Connor and different reform-minded Europeans inside the Faculty of Cardinals seized the chance to push Bergoglio after it was clear the Italians had been preventing amongst themselves over the Italian candidate, splitting their vote.
“Workforce Bergoglio,” as these reform-minded cardinals got here to be recognized, had tried to speak up Bergoglio within the 2005 conclave, however didn’t get their man by means of after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s momentum grew and Bergoglio bowed out.
In 2013, with many too outdated to vote within the conclave itself, “Workforce Bergoglio” talked up the Argentine at dinner events round Rome within the days earlier than the conclave to strive to make sure the Argentine might safe at the least 25 votes on the primary poll to ascertain himself as a severe candidate, the guide mentioned.
“The Nice Reformer” recounts a cocktail party on the North American Faculty, the US seminary in Rome, on March 5, 2013 to which Murphy-O’Connor and Australian Cardinal George Pell had been invited and the place the British cardinal talked up Bergoglio’s identify.
“He held plenty of these dinners, and I feel there have been a couple of of them concerned, a couple of who had grown satisfied that Bergoglio was what the church wanted,” Ivereigh mentioned Friday.
Nichols doesn’t have any such calculations or candidate, at the least that he’s prepared to expose.
“For me, it’s no good going right into a conclave pondering it’s like a political election and I need my facet to win. I’m not going to do this,” he mentioned. “I’m going to go in actually with my very own ideas however prepared to vary them, to hear and possibly attempt to persuade others to vary theirs too”.
