Biden declares Easter Sunday the day of trans visibility

Pope Francis shared details about the “maneuvers” that took place during the 2005 conclave, as recounted in the book ‘El Sucesor’ by journalist Javier Martínez Brocal. In it, Francis admits to having been a possible papal candidate, with 40 votes out of 115, enough to hinder the election of Joseph Ratzinger. However, the pontiff gave up, favoring Ratzinger, who was finally elected.

“It happened that I got 40 of the 115 votes in the Sistine Chapel. They were enough to stop the candidacy of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, because, if they had continued voting for me, he would not have been able to reach the two-thirds necessary to be elected pope,” Francis describes.

“The maneuver consisted of putting my name in, blocking Ratzinger’s election and then negotiating a third, different candidate. They told me later that they did not want a ‘foreign’ pope. It was a complete maneuver. The idea was to block the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. They used me, but behind them they were already thinking about proposing another cardinal,” he added.

“The conclave began on Monday, April 18, 2005. The first vote was in the afternoon. That operation was in the second or third vote, on Tuesday the 19th in the morning. When I realized it in the afternoon, I told a Latin American cardinal, the Colombian Darío Castrillón: ‘Don’t joke with my candidacy, because right now I’m going to say that I’m not going to accept, eh? Leave me there.’ And there Benedict was already elected,” Francis said.

Bergoglio assures that Joseph Ratzinger was his candidate because “he was the only one who at that time could be pope.” “After the revolution of John Paul II, who had been a dynamic pontiff, very active, with initiative, who traveled… there was a need for a pope who maintained a healthy balance, a transitional pope”

And he acknowledges: “If they had chosen someone like me, who makes a lot of trouble, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything. At that time, it would not have been possible. I left happy. Benedict XVI was a man who accompanied the new style. And it wasn’t easy for him, huh? He encountered a lot of resistance within the Vatican.”

Pope Francis will visit Indonesia in September, the country’s Minister of Religious Affairs announced.

In June 2022, outgoing President Joko Widodo invited the 87-year-old pope to visit Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, as part of an effort to promote religious tolerance.

“After waiting two years, Pope Francis is finally coming to Indonesia. I think it will be a special gift for Catholics,” said Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, at an event in Central Java province on Saturday.

“According to the letter sent by the Vatican received by the Indonesian government, Pope Francis will be in Indonesia on September 3, 2024,” said Qoumas, quoted on the ministry’s website.

According to the Pew Research Center, Indonesia has 242 million Muslims and about 29 million Christians, 8.5 million of whom are Catholic.

Pope Francis is also scheduled to visit Papua New Guinea in August, that country’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko said in January.

A Vatican source assured that the pope plans to visit East Timor that same month.

Since his election in 2013, the pope has made 44 trips abroad.

The Vatican said he plans to visit Belgium later this year and the pope himself has spoken of a possible trip to his native Argentina.

The pope’s health continues to be a concern and last Good Friday he canceled his participation in the traditional Stations of the Cross at the last minute.

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