Word: vaticans
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...more than an hour, confusion reigned in St. Peter's Square. When the smoke first began to curl out of a temporary rooftop chimney from the Vatican's Sistine Chapel at 6:24 p.m. on Saturday, it looked white?the traditional color to signal that the secret conclave within had elected a Pope. But could it be true? Not likely?not on the opening day of the largest, most complex gathering of Cardinal electors in the long pageant of papal elections. Sure enough, with dusk beginning to enfold the splendid statues and pillars of the Bernini colonnade, the smoke turned...
Suddenly, more than an hour after the puzzling signals began to billow forth, the Vatican's Pericle Felici, ranking Cardinal-deacon in the Sacred College, appeared at the opened Window of the Benediction in the center of St. Peter's Basilica. His Latin words boomed out over loudspeakers: "Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum. Habemus Papam!" (I announce to you a great joy. We have a Pope!) The crowd was hushed as Felici went on: "He is the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord Cardinal Albino Luciani, who has taken the name of John Paul the First [in Latin, Joannes Paulus Primus...
...swiftness of the vote also caught the Vatican bureaucracy by surprise. Some of the Swiss Guards had to be rounded up from neighborhood cafes, and they finally mustered for an honor march across the square during John Paul's appearance on the balcony, but not?as is customary?before it. Vatican officials on the list of those who make the act of obedience to the Pope after the appearance were scattered, some at the beach. Such notables as Substitute Secretary of State Giuseppe Caprio scurried back just in time for Felici's announcement. They were not summoned into the Sistine...
...past elections, caught in near deadlocks, "arrangements" sometimes had to be made?for instance a "ticket" pairing a papal candidate with a Secretary of State, the virtual Prime Minister of the Vatican. According to an informed reconstruction of the 1958 conclave, just such a gentlemen's agreement was worked out. Key Cardinals approached Angelo Roncalli, the man who became Pope John XXIII, and implied that they would vote for him in return for indirect assurances that Domenico Tardini, an experienced administrator and a Curial traditionalist, would be appointed Secretary of State. Replied Roncalli: "Eminences, one could not fail to take...
DIED. Paul Yu Pin, 77, China's only Roman Catholic Cardinal; of a heart attack; in Rome, where he had gone to participate in the Vatican conclave that will elect a successor to Pope Paul VI. After the Chinese Catholic Church was shattered in 1949 by the Communists, the towering Yu Pin (6 ft. 3 in.) was ordered by Pope Pius XII to abandon his diocese of Nanking for the U.S., and was condemned to death in absentia by the Communists...