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The 2013 papal conclave that elected Pope Francis is news again now that four cardinals have denied a new book’s claim that they campaigned for Pope Francis to be elected — though the book’s author has clarified the Pope himself was not a part of their supposed campaign.
The London-based Catholic journalist Austen Ivereigh, in his new book The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope, contends that a group of cardinals on what he bills as “Team Bergoglio” worked during the last conclave to promote the election of Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires as Pope.
According to Ivereigh, Cardinals Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Walter Kasper, Gottfried Daneels and Karl Lehmann orchestrated a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign that led to the election of Pope Francis.
Ivereigh wrote that the members of “Team Bergoglio” toured private dinners and other gatherings of cardinals the day before the conclave.
According to Ivereigh, a key role was played by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, for whom Ivereigh worked as a spokesman from 2004-2006.
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor had turned 80, and he could not take part in the conclave due to age limits. However, Ivereigh claims that the cardinal teamed up with other cardinals in order to promote Cardinal Bergoglio’s candidacy, as he earlier had done in 2005, when the Archbishop of Buenos Aires was the main competitor of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would become Pope Benedict XVI.
“They had learned their lesson from 2005 and they first secured Bergoglio’s assent,” Ivereigh wrote. He added that the 76-year-old Cardinal Bergoglio’s advocates “got to work, touring the cardinals dinner to promote their man, arguing that his age should no longer be considered an obstacle, given that Popes could resign.”
The report of this campaigning has caused a certain media frenzy. Some have argued that if the report is true, the election of Pope Francis may be invalid. Continue reading
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