Even as the Vatican prepares to open its ultra-secret conclave to elect the next pope, the list of "papabile" — possible candidates — continued to grow.
Veteran Vatican-watchers are now focusing on Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, the archbishop of Santiago, Chile.
Errazuriz, 71, is president of the Latin American Bishops’ Conference, which groups all the Roman Catholic churches in the region. But he also has solid Vatican experience and a strong connection with Europe, where slightly over half of the elector cardinals come from.
Marco Politi, a papal biographer and Vatican correspondent of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, wrote Friday that during a discussion among the cardinals on Thursday, Errazuriz’s name came up as a "new entry." He didn’t give his sources.
"His speech, dedicated to the situation of Catholicism in Latin America, was characterized by frankness and fervor," Politi wrote.
"The cardinal described the dangers posed by sects and by secularization... dwelt on the recovery in vocations and highlighted the continued vitality of popular religious sentiment," he said.
Errazuriz, he wrote, is "a name to keep an eye on."
Two South American ambassadors to the Vatican claimed seeing Errazuriz as a formidable candidate.
Not surprisingly, one of them was Chilean Ambassador Maximo Pacheco Gomez, who noted that Errazuriz was seen as a "papabile" across the world.
"I think he’s a very meritorious man who clearly has exceptional chances of succeeding St. Peter," Pacheco Gomez said.
Another South American ambassador to the Vatican, who for diplomatic reasons didn’t want to be identified further, also spoke excitedly about Errazuriz’s chances. He mentioned the cardinal’s pastoral experience, his knowledge of the Vatican administration, his ties to Germany and his human qualities.
He became a titular archbishop and moved to the Vatican in 1990, where for six years he developed ties to the Vatican-based curia.
Errazuriz returned to Chile in 1996 as archbishop of Valparaiso, and two years later became archbishop of Santiago, the South American country’s top Catholic post.
He is seen as a conservative on most doctrinal issues but a progressive on social issues. In Chile, Errazuriz is known for heading out in his trademark black beret to the poor outskirts of Santiago to offer Mass and words of comfort to Chile’s neediest.
Errazuriz strongly opposed a popular law legalizing divorce last year and challenged a plan by the government to distribute the "morning-after" contraception pill. And he has urged business leaders to do more to help the country’s less fortunate.
Errazuriz also has won acclaim for his efforts to promote reconciliation among Chileans still deeply divided by the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Agusto Pinochet.
"Having known him for a long time, I think he is a very virtuous man who has performed extraordinarily as archbishop of Santiago and as the president of the CELAM," Pacheco Gomez said, referring to the bishops’ conference by its Spanish acronym.
He said he was moved by the assembly of political and religious leaders gathered for John Paul II’s funeral last week.
"I saw the future pope there, without knowing who he was," Pacheco Gomez said. "I wished I had a radar, a sixth sense, to know who it was."
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the former Vatican No. 2, appeared to enter the fray of conservatives who wanted to continue John Paul’s legacy.
Sodano is thought to enjoy the support of Latin American cardinals and could shift enough votes to the liberals currently backing Milan Archbishop Dionigi Tettamanzi, analysts said.
The conservative camp is led by German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who turns 78 on Saturday, while the progressives’ presumed popemaker — or future pope — is Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, Tettamanzi’s predecessor in Milan.
While Ratzinger insists on the centrality of the pope and the Curia, or the Vatican hierarchy, 78-year-old Martini is in favor of greater powers for bishops and local churches.
"In lay terms, you could look at it as a wish to democratize the Church," the left-wing daily La Repubblica said in an editorial.
Martini and Ratzinger are thought to have equal support, but far short of the 77 votes they need as many of the 115 cardinals who will take part in the conclave remain undecided.
Both have health problems — Martini suffers from Parkinson’s disease, as did John Paul II who died April 2, and Ratzinger had a stroke in the 1980s.
While the Ratzinger camp is said to have a clear program that has not been countered by the progressives, analysts now say the two sides are likely to cancel each other out.
Dissident Swiss theologian Hans Kueng had doubted that Ratzinger — who has been dubbed "God’s Rottweiler" for his ultraconservative views — stood a chance of winning, but that an "openly progressive" candidate would also be blocked.
This may lead to an echo of the election that produced John Paul II in 1978, when the two Italian frontrunners, Giuseppe Siri and Giovanni Benelli, were unable to muster the necessary support.
As the front-runners fall away in early rounds of voting — and analysts now expect several ballots — the conservatives are likely to put forward Venice Patriarch Angelo Scola, 63, or Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, 60.
Waiting in the wings on the other side are Lisbon Patriarch Jose Da Cruz Policarpo, 69, and 62-year-old Honduran Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga.
Judging from the terse wording of a Vatican press release Friday, debate was intense during the cardinals’ 11th general congregation ahead of the conclave: they "dedicated the entire morning to an exchange of ideas on the problems of the Church and of the world."
Reports said the cardinals were warned by a papal preacher to rein in their personal ambitions.
The blunt warning came in a "meditation" delivered Thursday by Franciscan priest Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher to the papal household.
"Don’t be ambitious" or be tempted to "promote yourselves," or the conclave will descend into chaos, Cantalamessa reportedly said in his stern admonition.
Meanwhile, workmen installed a chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel on Friday for the famous smoke signals — black for failure and white for success — that will indicate whether a new pope has been elected.
In line with a centuries-old tradition, if the 115 cardinals who are to go into seclusion tomorrow to elect a successor to John Paul II do not obtain the required two-thirds majority vote, black smoke will rise from the chimney.
White smoke and bells will indicate success, to be followed soon afterward by a joyous announcement from the balcony above Saint Peter’s Square of "Habemus papam (We have a pope)!"