'Candidates' for the Papacy

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 32, 6 August 1903, Page 1

' Candidates ' for the Papacy

The Conclave for the election of a successor to Leo XIII. of\ happy memory has set the tongue of journalistic speculation a-clacking with more volubility than good scribe. Speculation is in the air and Rumor is as busy as a family of bell-ringers. Samuel Butler aptly describes her as ' a tall, long-sided dame ' ' That, like a thin camelion, boards Herself on air, and eats her words ; Ijpon her shoulders wings she wears, Like hanging sleeves lin'd thro' with ears And eyes and tongues, as poets list, Made good by deep mythologist ; With these she through the welkin flies, And sometimes carries truth, oft lies.'

A message that does not come from her slender budget of truth reports that twenty Cardinals are • candidates for the Chair of St. Peter. 'l Among thej empurpled list of ' candidates ' for the triple crown, several New Zealand dailies set up, as strong favorites, 1 two Cardinals 1 Whose bones are dust Whose souls are with the Saints, we trust.' And, generally speaking, the information as to the japal election is about on a level with what one might expect to find in the columns of the ' World of Sport.' All the statements, for instance, regarding ' candidates ' for the papal office are misleading to a degree. A candidate is defined in the ' Encyclopaedic Dictionary ' as ' one who proposes himself for, or solicits, an office or appointment.' In this sense there are no ' candidates for the Chair of St. Peter.' There 'is no nomination for the office of Pope. No Cardinal can ,(in the ordinary political sense of the term) ' propose ' either himself or any other person. And the soliciting of votes for himself by a Prince of the Church would be such an unheard-of thing, such an outrage on ecclesiastical decorum, such an evidence of overweening ambition that it would o'ervault itself and deprive him of the support and respect even of his personal friends. The merits, demerits, and chances of various Cardinals form, naturally, a subject of some conversation and speculation among the membets of the Sacred College within the guarded enclosure of ihe Conclave. But— apart from the extremely rare and unlikely event of a selection by acclamation or compro-

mise—the ' standing 'of any Cardinal in reference to the papal chair cannot be predicted, even within the walls of the Conclave, in any but, at best, a vague manner until one or more ballots have been taken in the manner described in our last issue. The Cardinals are solemnly sworn to support by their votes the person whom, before God, they believe ought to be chosen for that exalted and responsible office. They, moreover, realise the wisdom that finds expression in the old Celtic proverb ■ • Melodious is the closed mouth.' They know how to hold their tongues. They, and all in the Conclave, are under a bond of swozn seciecy. They aie cut of! from all communication with the outside world. No whisper, not a breath, of their deliberations can pass beyond the silent and guarded walls. And all the Conclave ' news ' that comes to us along the wires on the Ocean's bed merely represents Dame Rumor letting her imagination run not over the shadowy fields of speculation-wasting her ammunition on matters that, for the moment, are as much beyond her ken as if the Cardinals were holding their sittings by one of the canals of the planet Mars