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Today on State of the World, preparing to pick a new pope. You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. It's Monday, April 28th. I'm Greg Dixon. Pope Francis has now been laid to rest and a date has been set for the meeting to choose his successor. On May 7th, the College of Cardinals will convene at the Vatican.
We're going to hear from one of those cardinals in a few minutes. But first, we go to the room where the decision will be made, the famous Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling of Michelangelo's frescoes.
NPR's Lauren Frayer got one of the last tickets to go inside the chapel before it was closed in preparation for the Cardinals. She takes us along for the tour. We began in a tourist traffic jam. With a tour guide named Guido Airoldi. Within Vatican City is the Sistine Chapel, named for Pope Sixtus IV, re-established
who oversaw renovations here in the late 15th century. As we inch toward the building, we see it's actually... Very unimpressive from the outside because...
It's a private chapel. There's no square, no fountains. And it's the only way to get into the Sistine Chapel is to go through the papal palace, which is where we are now. The papal palace is vast. It houses the Vatican library, government offices, papal apartments, and museums full of ancient Roman sculptures, Gothic gargoyles, Etruscan artifacts, and Renaissance masterpieces.
Here we have angels with trumpets announcing the beginning of judgment, souls who's climbing to heaven and souls being thrown into hell.
All the way up to the top, you see a very strange... On the day Pope Francis died, 135 of the Catholic Church's cardinals were under age 80, making them eligible for this conclave. They will not wind their way to the chapel the way we are, though. First, they go and visit a chapel called the Pauline Chapel where they pray God to inspire them for what they're about to do. And then it's a procession. The cardinals come through a huge door...
which is now closed, wooden door in the Sistine Chapel. They all come in and they sign their name and
and other rituals that we don't know of. What we do know is that they'll sleep in a hotel adjacent to the chapel. It's where Pope Francis himself lived in a break with tradition, rather than in the papal palace. For the conclave, the chapel will be transformed. They need to bring a special floor, special tables and chairs. They need to bring the stove and the pipe and the chimney. They have to put the chimney in.
For the famous white smoke. Yes, they have to arrange the chapel for the election. The Vatican says the special floor protects marble inlay and provides a more level surface. But an American priest who runs a think tank in Rome, Father Robert Sirico, tells NPR the floor also has cell phone jamming devices underneath it.
to prevent cardinals from leaking information. And in a very modern way, keep them locked away from the outside world as per ancient tradition, says Iroldi, our guide. And that's since centuries. That's why it's called conclave, because they were locked up there, cum clave, with key. But the doors are not locked yet, and we're about to go in. Because talking is discouraged once you enter the chapel, Iroldi sets the scene with pictures he has on hand. This
The ceiling, Michelangelo's ceiling, with the most famous scene, the creation of Adam in the image of God. And explains the backstory of how one of the most famous artworks of all time, the fresco commissioned by Pope Julius II, almost didn't get painted. Michelangelo doesn't want to work here. He is a sculptor. He's not interested in doing this. But the
Pope has made up his mind. And you have to understand that in those days, if you refuse to work for a pope, your career is over anyway. So you might as well give it a try. So Michelangelo did, and then went back to sculpture and hardly ever painted again. I mean, why would you?
Okay, here's the Sistine Chapel. To exit, you go to the left. And with that, three hours after we arrived and well-prepped by Iroldi, we're ushered into the Sistine Chapel itself with about 500 other tourists. There are children, there's a mountain crutches here, but even shoulder to shoulder with several hundred people, it is incredible. And right up at the center, on the ceiling...
Is Adam reaching out and touching his finger with a bearded, gray-haired god in the sky. It's Michelangelo's masterpiece, and it's breathtaking.
Since then, the crowds have been cleared out and the chapel shut. Preparations are now underway for the conclave. And when it begins, Vincent Nicholls will be inside. When those doors shut, all of the, you know, it's conservative against liberal and all of that stuff, that will finish. As the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Nicholls is the church's top official for England and Wales.
As a 79-year-old cardinal, he's also one of those 135 electors who will be making a very big decision for some 1.4 billion Catholics. In a walled garden behind a British seminary near the Vatican, he told us how he feels as he faces his first conclave. It's intimidating, frankly. And I've brought to mind once or twice in these days what...
Pope John XXIII wrote that every night before he went to sleep, he would say, right, Lord, the kind of thing, I'm signing off, I'm going to sleep. It's your church, you look after it. For eight hours while I sleep. And there's a bit of that. The College of Cardinals is more diverse than at any time in history. Many appointed like yourself by Pope Francis.
Have you met your fellow cardinals? Are you talking on the phone these days and weeks? That's what these days are for. We'll have a full week or more just to be together and to listen to each other's stories before we go in. And this is your first conclave. Are you consulting others who've been to conclaves before? What should I expect? Any tips, advice? Only a little, only a little, yeah.
Now, my predecessor was at Conclave and the one before that, but they both died. So they left me some memories of Mr. Neve. Right, right. You are the son of two teachers, I believe. My goodness, you've done your research. You've worked in education. Tell me about youth in the church, what role they should play and what role the new pope will play with them.
When I think about Pope Francis, I think he was in Poland at a World Youth Day. So there were more than a million young people present. And he said to them, if you want to be a messenger of hope in the world, go and talk to your grandparents. So he would not want young people to see themselves in some kind of sealed compartment.
nor would you want elderly people left, as it were, on the side. In recent days in St. Peter's Square, we've spoken to so many people who had so much hope for the direction that Pope Francis brought the church in. We spoke to women who were really heartened by a larger role for women in the church under Pope Francis. Do you think the next pope will continue in the direction this pope takes?
It's quite a complicated question, because I don't think for a moment we should confuse a few jobs here in Rome as a sign of the role that women play in life and in the life of the church, in the life of faith. You know, a good friend of mine, she's 93 now, she'd been a headteacher for years, and she quite happily says to me, I've heard far more confessions than you have, you know.
Yeah, because children give, you know, and that's where they start and they're brought in. So it's quite a complicated question. And it's not just these kind of, what do you call them, neuralgic points. You've got to look a bit deeper. What about how Pope Francis told priests it was OK to bless gay couples? It was OK for some divorced people to take communion there.
Are those directions that he pointed the church in irrevocable? Well, in the Synod on the Family, 1980, I think it was, there was a long discussion which I was present at. And the distinction was made between the way in which we try to live the full commands of the Lord, which is always gradually changed.
But that's not the same as saying that the law is gradual. It's our walking towards it. Now, that's what Pope Francis took and really developed. And that's why he said, for example, on gay marriage on the plane, who am I to judge? But his next phrase was,
if people are striving to do the will of God. So it was, we walk, it's not about condemnation, but it is about discerning where this is going and if it will take you closer to that sense of the love of God in your life. And it's also very important to think, I'm sorry, I'm going on a bit, but it's also very important to understand that the commands of Jesus are given to his friends constantly.
If you love me, keep my commandments. So they're not kind of
universal, you know, commands. If you want to learn life in its fullness, then this is the way we go. And what about Pope Francis' critics who saw those things as destabilizing for the traditions of the Church? What do you say to them? Well, we talk about it, don't we? And no doubt we will in the days to come. I think Pope Francis was very clear
that it's not essentially a matter of conformity. It's a matter of love. Someone in that room in the Sistine Chapel will walk out as Pope. Could it be you? No, I don't think so, no. Come on, I'm nearly 80, and there's lots of other reasons as well. Yeah.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, thank you so much. Okay. I'm torn. Can I say I hope we see you in London? If we don't see you in London, we'll know where you are. Oh, I hope you know. That's NPR's Lauren Frayer in Rome. That story was produced by Fatima Al-Kassab. And that's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening.
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