Being isolated from the rest of the world during the conclave to elect the new Pope was “extremely peaceful,” according to England and Wales’ most senior Roman Catholic official.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, was one of 133 cardinals locked in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel and later elected Pope Leo XIV on Thursday.
He told BBC Breakfast on Saturday that no one at the highly confidential conference said who to vote for or who not to vote for, and that there was “no rancour” or “politicking” among the cardinals. It was a much calmer process than that and I found it a rather wonderful experience,” he told me.
Since the 15th century, cardinals have held conclaves in the Sistine Chapel, and they are prohibited from communicating with the outside world until a new Pope is chosen. The current conclave followed Pope Francis’s death on April 21.
Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, stated that his cell phone was removed from him, and that he now had “more time on my hands just to be prayerful, just to reflect, just to be still, rather than being constantly agitated… or prompted by what might be coming in” on it. For me, one of the experiences of these last few days was to learn a bit of patience, to just take this step by step,” he told reporters.
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