Month: May 2025

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – At Mass before the conclave that will elect the next pope, the dean of the College of Cardinals urged his brothers to choose the shepherd the church and all of humanity need “at this difficult and complex and tormented” turning point in history.

“Today’s world expects much from the church regarding the safeguarding of those fundamental human and spiritual values without which human coexistence will not be better nor bring good to future generations,” Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the college, said in his homily.

He prayed that Mary would intercede, and the Holy Spirit would enlighten the cardinal electors “and help them agree on the pope that our time needs.”

The Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica May 7 was the last public event before 133 cardinals from 71 countries were to enter the Sistine Chapel to elect the 267th pope and Pope Francis’ successor. Only cardinals under the age of 80 were eligible to enter the conclave.

Cardinal Re, 91, presided over the Mass “Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice” (“for the election of the Roman pontiff”) with some 220 other cardinals, including those who would be entering the conclave that afternoon. The prayers and readings made frequent reference to the need to choose a good pastor.

At the start of the Mass, as the choir sang verses of joy and thanks to the Lord from the Psalms, the cardinals processed up the main aisle of the basilica, wearing red vestments.

They listened as Cardinal Re, who headed the Vatican’s then-Congregation for Bishops and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America from 2000 to 2010, underlined the seriousness of the task before them and the qualities every pope – the successor of St. Peter – must embody.

“We are here to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit, to implore his light and strength,” he said, “so that the pope elected may be he whom the church and humanity need at this difficult and complex and tormented turning point in history.”

“To pray, by invoking the Holy Spirit, is the only right and proper attitude to take as the cardinal electors prepare to undertake an act of the highest human and ecclesial responsibility and to make a choice of exceptional importance,” he said.

“This is a human act for which every personal consideration must be set aside, keeping in mind and heart only the God of Jesus Christ and the good of the church and of humanity,” the cardinal warned.

Jesus gave his disciples a “new” commandment, “that you love one another as I have loved you,” he said; that kind of love is one so great and boundless that it includes laying down one’s life for one’s friends.

All of his Jesus’ disciples must always show his same “authentic love in their behavior and commit themselves to building a new civilization” of love, he said, because “love is the only force capable of changing the world.”

This kind of love can be surprising, he said, like when Jesus humbly washed the feet of the apostles, “without discrimination, and not excluding Judas, who would betray him.”

In fact, the fundamental quality of a shepherd “is love to the point of complete self-giving,” Cardinal Re said.

The pre-conclave Mass and its readings invited the world’s cardinals “to fraternal love, to mutual help and to commitment to ecclesial communion and universal human fraternity,” he said.

The shepherd of the universal church has numerous responsibilities, Cardinal Re said, including fostering communion: “communion of all Christians with Christ; communion of the bishops with the pope; communion of the bishops among themselves”; and a communion “that is entirely directed toward communion among persons, peoples and cultures.”

“This is also a strong call to maintain the unity of the church on the path traced out by Christ to the apostles,” he said. This unity “does not mean uniformity, but a firm and profound communion in diversity provided that full fidelity to the Gospel is always maintained.”

“Let us pray, then, that the Holy Spirit, who in the last hundred years has given us a series of truly holy and great pontiffs, will give us a new pope according to God’s heart for the good of the church and of humanity,” the cardinal said.

“Let us pray that God will grant the church a pope who knows how best to awaken the consciences of all and awaken the moral and spiritual energies in today’s society, characterized by great technological progress but which tends to forget God,” he said.

Cardinal Re reminded the cardinal electors that as they sit praying and voting in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s “image of Jesus the judge” would be “looming” over them.

In a poem St. John Paul II expressed his hope “that during the hours of voting on this weighty decision,” that image would remind them of “the greatness of the responsibility of placing the ‘supreme keys’ in the correct hands,” he said.

Some five hours after the opening Mass, the cardinals were to process into the Sistine Chapel, swear an oath to uphold the conclave rules, listen to a final reflection and – if they chose to do so – conduct the first ballot.

The cardinals had been meeting almost daily for two weeks to discuss the practical affairs of the papal transition period, the challenges faced by the church and to consider potential candidates for the papacy.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The conclave that begins May 7 is expected to be the largest in history, with a wide geographical mix of cardinal-electors.

While 115 cardinals took part in the conclaves in 2005 and 2013, 133 prelates were expected to walk into the Sistine Chapel to elect a successor to Pope Francis.

There are 135 cardinals under the age of 80 and eligible to vote in a papal election, however, local church officials had notified the Vatican that Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, the 79-year-old retired archbishop of Valencia, Spain, and Cardinal John Njue, the 79-year-old retired of archbishop of Nairobi, Kenya, were not coming to Rome due to health issues.

In case a cardinal-elector in Rome feels too ill to process into the Sistine Chapel, the rules governing the election of a new pope allow for three cardinals to leave the chapel to retrieve the ailing cardinal’s vote from his sickbed in the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

The cardinals represent 71 different countries if one counts the nations where they are serving and not just where they were born. Take the example of three Italians: Cardinals Pierbattista Pizzaballa is the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem; Giorgio Marengo is the apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; and Mario Zenari is the apostolic nuncio to Syria.

The participating cardinals’ average age on May 6 was 70.3. That is slightly younger than the average age of electors who participated in the last conclave in 2013, which was 71.8.

According “Universi Dominici Gregis,” the document giving rules for the election of a new pope, cardinals who celebrate their 80th birthday before the day the Apostolic See becomes vacant — that is, with a papal death or resignation — do not take part in the election.

The oldest among current voters is Cardinal Carlos Osoro Sierra, the retired archbishop of Madrid, who turns 80 May 16.

The youngest member of the conclave is 45-year-old Ukrainian-born Cardinal Mykola Bychok of the Ukrainian Eparchy of Sts. Peter and Paul of Melbourne, Australia. He is one of 17 Gen X cardinals, those born between 1965 and 1980.

Only five of the cardinals expected to enter the conclave were created cardinals by St. John Paul II and 20 were created by Pope Benedict XVI.

That means 25 of them took part in the conclave that elected Pope Francis, and five of those also participated in the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict.

But that also means voting in a conclave will be a brand new experience for 108 of the electors.

While the geographical breakdown of conclave voters has become more diverse since 1978, Europeans are still the largest block. Fifty-one of the participating electors, or 38%, come from Europe.

However, Asia is more represented now than ever before with 24 electors or almost 18% of the total. There are 23 cardinal-electors representing Latin America, which is 17% of the total, followed by Africa with 17 electors. North America now trails behind Africa and Asia with 14 electors, representing 10.5%, and Oceania has four voting-age cardinals, 3% of the total.

In the country-by-country breakdown, Italy has 16 voting-age cardinals, followed by the United States with 10, representing 7.5% of the voting total.

Brazil has seven cardinals participating; France has five, and Spain, Poland, Portugal, India, Argentina and Canada have four each. England, Germany and the Philippines have three cardinal-electors each. Fifty-eight countries are represented with one or two cardinal-electors.

In terms of influence, the Vatican as an institution will be heavily represented, with 27 members of the Roman Curia voting in the conclave — 20.3% of the total.

Since a two-thirds majority of the cardinal-electors who participate is needed to elect a pope, if all the 133 electors present in Rome vote, there would need to be at least 89 votes for one candidate to emerge as the winner.

Among the voting-age cardinals, there are 33 members of religious orders, including: five Salesians, four Jesuits, four Franciscans and three Conventual Franciscans.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – On the eve of the conclave that will decide the next pontiff, the ring and lead seal of the late Pope Francis were destroyed in the presence of members of the College of Cardinals in the Vatican’s New Synod Hall.

In a video released by the Vatican May 6, an unidentified woman scratched a cross on the papal ring, known as the fisherman’s ring, as well as on a lead seal bearing the papal insignia used to mark Pope Francis’ letters.

When asked why the destruction of the ring and the seal took place at the meeting and not immediately after the pope’s death, Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, told journalists that the rules in the apostolic constitution, “Universi Dominici Gregis,” which governs the interregnum and election of a new pope, does not specify a precise time.

According to the apostolic constitution, the cardinals “arrange for the destruction of the fisherman’s ring and of the lead seal with which Apostolic Letters are dispatched” when meeting at the general congregations.

At their final congregation meeting, Bruni said, the cardinals discussed several issues, including the continuation of reforms initiated by Pope Francis, the fight against clergy sexual abuse and the care for creation.

The cardinals also emphasized the characteristics of the next pope, highlighting the importance “of communion” which was viewed “as an essential vocation for the new pontiff,” Bruni said.

“The profile of a shepherd pope, a teacher of humanity, capable of embodying the face of a Samaritan church, close to the needs and wounds of humanity, was outlined” at the last meeting, the Vatican reported in a communique. “In times marked by wars, violence and strong polarization, a strong need is felt for a spiritual guide who offers mercy, synodality and hope.”

The cardinals also approved an official declaration calling for peace in conflicts around the world, including in Ukraine and the Middle East. They lamented that “attacks, especially against civilian populations, have intensified.”

“We issue a heartfelt appeal to all parties involved to reach a permanent cease-fire as soon as possible and to negotiate, without preconditions or further delay, the peace long desired by the affected populations and the entire world,” the statement read.

At the press briefing, Bruni said the letter was the result of a proposal made at the general congregations and approved by the cardinals.

Bruni was also asked about reports in which Kenyan Cardinal Njue, the retired archbishop of Nairobi, claimed to have not been invited to participate in the conclave.

The Vatican press office had said May 2 that Cardinal Njue and Spanish Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, the retired archbishop of Valencia, would not participate in the conclave due to health issues.

However, in an interview published May 6 by the Kenyan newspaper, The Nation, Cardinal Njue said he was not absent due to ill health but rather that he was never sent a formal invitation.

“Those who go there for the election are usually sent official invites and that has not happened on my part. I have not received an invitation,” the Kenyan cardinal said.

Shortly after, Archbishop Philip Anyolo of Nairobi issued a statement saying that Cardinal Njue had been “officially invited through the Apostolic Nunciature in Kenya.” The archbishop’s office had duly communicated to the Vatican that, “owing to his current health condition, (Cardinal Njue) will be unable to travel to Rome and take part in the conclave,” Archbishop Anyolo wrote.

The statement, however, did not clarify if Cardinal Njue was informed of the invitation. Bruni confirmed to journalists that the Vatican was told by the Nairobi archdiocese that Cardinal Njue would not participate due to health reasons and had no comment regarding the cardinal’s allegation.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – As the Catholic Church and its cardinals prepare for May’s conclave, a new study by the Pew Research Center shows that U.S. Catholics want a more inclusive church – but divides remain on key issues among those with differing rates of Mass attendance.

The survey found that 60% of U.S. Catholics said the church “should be more inclusive, even if that means changing some of its teachings,” while 37% said the church “should stick to its traditional teachings, even if that means the church gets smaller.”

But among those who attend Mass weekly, 53% said the church should prioritize its traditional teachings, while 42% said it should prioritize inclusivity.

White non-Hispanic Catholics (61%) were more likely to prioritize inclusivity over keeping traditional teaching than Hispanic Catholics (56%). Hispanic Catholics showed stronger support for insisting the church stick to traditional teachings (40%) than white non-Hispanic Catholics (37%).

The survey did not include enough Black or Asian Catholics to break out separate responses.

According to the study, 84% of U.S. Catholics said the church should allow Catholics to use birth control – it did not distinguish between natural and artificial methods – while another 83% said the church should allow couples to use in vitro fertilization, or IVF. Those numbers slightly decreased to 72% (for birth control) and 71% (for IVF) among weekly Massgoers.

Father Thomas Gaunt, executive director of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, told OSV News the Pew survey aligned with his organization’s previous findings on the correlation between Mass attendance and acceptance of church teaching.

“Regular weekly church attenders tend to be far more consistent with the church’s stance and teachings than those who aren’t regular,” said Father Gaunt, whose organization, along with other Catholic experts, was consulted by Pew regarding the questionnaire.

At the same time, Father Gaunt noted some of the questions — specifically, those on IVF, married priests, and same-sex blessings — could have been further refined for greater accuracy.

In particular, he said, the question regarding IVF — which simply asked respondents if the church should permit the procedure to get pregnant — did not include language about the embryos created in the process, said Father Gaunt.

He explained that this “yes” to an abstract question is really an “incomplete” response. He noted that if participants had to also consider the fate of the discarded embryonic children, “You’ll see it’s a different reaction: ‘Hmm, I didn’t realize (that).'”

IVF is contrary to Catholic teaching, as it involves the eugenic destruction of millions of embryonic children, the unraveling of the integral bond between childbearing and marital love, the erosion of a child’s right to natural parents, and threats to health, safety and religious liberty. “Donum Vitae,” the 1987 instruction on respect for human life issued by the Vatican’s Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith, first articulated the church’s stance on IVF, stressing human embryos’ dignity and their right to life.

The church holds that human sexuality, the differences and complementarity of male and female, is oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. While married couples, amid their openness to new life, can space the birth of their children through natural family planning — a term encompassing an array of fertility awareness-based methods used to achieve or delay pregnancy — the church teaches that efforts to make procreation impossible are “intrinsically evil.”

Additionally, Pew found that 68% of U.S. Catholics overall said the church should allow women to become deacons, while another 59% said the church should ordain women as priests.

But these numbers decreased to 54% (for women deacons) and 41% (for women priests) among weekly Massgoers.

The late Pope Francis, who prioritized a greater inclusion of women in the life of the church, vigorously reiterated church teaching on the priesthood, which holds that priestly ordination is reserved to men alone due to the decision of Jesus Christ to only choose men for his apostles, the first priests and bishops of the church. However, the late pope also called for more theological reflection on the feminine dimension of the church and the role of women.

At the October 2024 Synod on Synodality, then-Vatican doctrinal chief Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, citing Pope Francis, said that the question of women in the diaconate — for which the pontiff had established a study group — was not “mature.” The cardinal explained that “other issues,” particularly the broad issue of women’s participation in the church, needed to be “deepened and resolved” first.

The Pew poll also found 63% of U.S. Catholics overall said the church should allow priests to get married, but just 49% of weekly Massgoers said they would support this.

Pew’s phrasing around married priests, however, did not allow Catholic respondents to give their views on the ordination of married men to the priesthood. In an explainer on its wording, Pew researchers said they only addressed “allowing parish priests to get married and continue in their duties” — something that is not allowed even in Eastern Catholic or Orthodox churches that have married priests.

In the Latin Church – the largest of the Catholic Church’s 24 self-governing churches and which is headed by the pope as the bishop of Rome – the ordination of celibate men only to priesthood has been the norm since the 12th century, with some exceptions to the discipline made in modern times for some former Protestant married clergy. The possibility of the Latin Church ordaining married men to the priesthood, in addition to celibate men, as a norm to align with the ancient discipline of the other 23 Eastern Catholic churches and their Orthodox counterparts, is a debatable matter.

However, all Catholic and Orthodox churches forbid priests from attempting to marry after ordination. The potentially fraught situation involves lopsided power dynamics between priests, who act in the person of Christ the head, and lay women, raising difficulties about the possibility for full and free consent needed to effect a valid sacramental marriage.

Six in 10 U.S. Catholics said priests should be permitted to give same-sex couples blessings.

But Father Gaunt said the question did not highlight that “priests could always give blessings to individuals” — something Pope Francis stressed after the Vatican’s 2023 declaration on the issue, “Fiducia Supplicans,” created a firestorm of controversy. The late pope said in a 2024 CBS News interview, “What I allowed was not to bless the union. That cannot be done because that is not the sacrament. I cannot. The Lord made it that way. But to bless each person, yes.”

Other findings from the Pew survey:

-About three-quarters of U.S. Catholics (76%) say the church should allow Catholics to receive holy Communion even if they are unmarried and living with a romantic partner, whereas the church’s Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches sexual activity must take place exclusively within marriage, otherwise it is a grave sin that “excludes one from sacramental communion.”

-Half said the church should recognize the unions of same-sex couples as marriages, whereas the Catholic Church teaches matrimony is the sacramental lifelong union of a man and a woman for the good of the spouses and open to the gift of children.

The survey also found a stark partisan divide, with self-identified Republicans and independents who lean Republican more likely to express support for the traditional teachings on those issues than Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents.

Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 53% said the church should prioritize maintaining its traditional teachings, while 45% said it should prioritize inclusivity. However, 75% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the church should prioritize inclusivity, while 21% said to prioritize maintaining traditional teaching.

About three out of 10 U.S. Catholics say they attend Mass at least once a week, according to Pew, while the remainder attend less frequently or not at all.

JERUSALEM (OSV News) – With the declining situation in Gaza always in his heart, in his final months, Pope Francis bequeathed his popemobile to Caritas Jerusalem and directed the agency to turn it into a mobile health station for the children in Gaza.

Preparation of the new health station is to be completed by mid-May, said Peter Brune, secretary general of Caritas Sweden, who together with Caritas Jerusalem’s Anton Asfar developed the idea in February. Upon Asfar’s suggestion, Brune visited Bethlehem in February to view the popemobile that had been stored in Bethlehem since it was used by Pope Francis on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2014.

Pope Francis readily agreed to the idea after Swedish Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm, Sweden, approached him, Brune told OSV News in a phone interview.

“There is an urgency in the need to help children in Gaza. There has been a full blockage of aid since March 2,” Brune said. “This is not the way we should treat our children.”

When access to food, water and health care is cut off, children are often the first and hardest hit, with infection and other preventable conditions putting their lives at risk, Caritas Sweden and Caritas Jerusalem said in a press release. Brune said in the release that the mobile clinic will be a “concrete, life-saving intervention at a time when the health system in Gaza has almost completely collapsed.”

The vehicle will be staffed by a driver and medical doctors and is currently being fitted with equipment for diagnoses, examination and treatment, including rapid tests for infections, suture kits, syringes and needles, oxygen supply, vaccines and a refrigerator for medicines, and will be ready for use once the humanitarian corridor to Gaza reopens.

“This vehicle represents the love, care and closeness shown by His Holiness for the most vulnerable, which he expressed throughout the crisis,” Asfar said in the press release.

Since the outbreak of the war Pope Francis called the Catholic Holy Family Parish every night and spoke with the parish priests including parish pastor, Father Gabriel Romanelli, to express his support of the parish community sheltering at the compound. In his last “urbi et orbi” blessing on Easter, April 20, the pope called for a ceasefire and the release of the 59 hostages still held by Hamas, up to 24 of who are believed to still be alive, and aid for “a starving people who aspire to a future of peace.”

The main message of the new health mobile is to assure that the children of Gaza are not forgotten, said Brune. The unit will be called “Vehicle of Hope,” he said.

“It will be conveying a message of hope,” he told OSV. “The children will be sitting on the chair of the Holy Father and treated as the miracles that they are. If nothing more symbolically the pope was interested in bringing attention to the situation of the children of Gaza.”

In the meantime Israeli media reported that the Israeli cabinet approved plans which included “conquering of Gaza and holding the territories” as well as a plan for the distribution of humanitarian aid that Israel says would prevent Hamas from controlling its distribution.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – With less than 48 hours until the beginning of the conclave, the cardinals who will enter the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope discussed war, the need for dialogue and the role of the pope in fostering it.

More than 170 cardinals, including 132 cardinals eligible to enter the conclave, met for two hours in the early evening May 5; it was the only time since Pope Francis died April 21 that they decided to add an evening session.

Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said about 20 cardinals spoke.

They discussed relations between ethnic groups within the church, migration as both a gift and a challenge for the church, the conflicts touching the cardinals’ home territories – particularly in Africa and parts of Asia – synodality and an ecclesiology of communion, Bruni told reporters.

“Reference was also made to the challenge represented by the spread of sects in various parts of the world,” the press office said in a statement.

Bruni said the cardinals also addressed the “obligation and responsibility of the cardinals to support the new pope.”

In terms of what qualities that pope should have, “a pope as a pastor was discussed,” Bruni said, “and with a perspective that goes beyond only the Catholic Church, particularly in a world in which all people are closer — therefore (working) toward dialogue and building relationships with different religious and cultural spheres.”

The May 5 evening session was scheduled to be penultimate general congregation meeting of cardinals. They were scheduled to meet once more the morning of May 6, and the conclave was scheduled to begin the following day.

Bruni said that about 100 people assisting with the conclave, clergy and laypeople, took their oath of secrecy about the conclave proceedings May 5.

Beginning May 6, the 133 cardinal electors expected to participate in the conclave will have access to their rooms in the Vatican guesthouses where they will stay during the conclave — the Domus Sanctae Marthae and the “old Casa Santa Marta” next door. They will begin spending the night there the evening of May 7.

The cardinals’ cell phones will be left at their temporary residences before the conclave, and they will have access to them again at the end of the conclave, Bruni said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – On the final day of official mourning for the death of Pope Francis, the late pontiff was remembered as someone who was determined to live out the mission entrusted to him and serve others, even when his health deteriorated.

Presiding over a memorial Mass May 4, French Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, protodeacon of the College of Cardinals, said Pope Francis “remained faithful to his mission to the very exhaustion of his strength.”

“I was close to him on Easter Sunday, on the balcony of blessings of this basilica, as a witness to his suffering, but above all to his courage and determination to serve the people of God to the end,” Cardinal Mamberti said in his homily in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The main concelebrants at the memorial Mass, which marked the final day of the “novendiali” – the nine days of official mourning and Masses for the late pope – were Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, subdean of the College of Cardinals, and Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, the Chicago-born prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis.

Unless he is elected pope, as the senior cardinal deacon, Cardinal Mamberti is also tasked with declaring the election of the new pope to the public by proclaiming the words, “Habemus papam” (“We have a pope”).

In his homily, the French cardinal reflected on the Gospel reading which recalled Jesus’ threefold question to Peter, asking the disciple if he loved him and then entrusting him to “feed” and “tend my sheep.”

The mission entrusted to Peter, Cardinal Mamberti said, “is love itself which becomes service to the church and to all humanity.”

In his teachings, travels, gestures and way of life, Pope Francis was faithful to that mission by warning “the powerful that we must obey God rather than men” and by proclaiming “to all humanity the joy of the Gospel, the merciful Father and Christ the savior,” he said.

The late pope also emphasized the importance of adoration and worship before God “who comes in littleness, who dwells in our homes, who dies for love,” the cardinal said, citing Pope Francis’ words.

“This capacity for adoration was not hard to recognize in Pope Francis,” Cardinal Mamberti said. “His tireless pastoral life and countless encounters were grounded in long periods of prayer shaped by Ignatian discipline. He often reminded us that contemplation is ‘a dynamic of love’ that ‘lifts us to God not to detach us from the earth, but to help us inhabit it more deeply.'”

Cardinal Mamberti concluded his homily by remembering the pope’s devotion to Mary, evidenced by his “126 visits to the ‘Salus Populi Romani,'” the Marian icon housed at Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major.

“And now that he rests near that beloved image, we entrust him with gratitude and confidence to the intercession of the mother of the Lord and our mother,” Cardinal Mamberti said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain and the Sistine Chapel usually top the “must see” list of visitors to Rome and the Vatican.

But as 133 of the world’s cardinals prepared to enter the conclave May 7 to elect the new pope, the Sistine Chapel was closed to visitors April 28.

In preparation for the conclave, workers placed a protective covering over the marble mosaic floors and started carrying in pipes, couplers and sheets of subflooring.

The chapel is the highlight of most tours of the Vatican Museums and close to 7 million people visit each year, especially to see the ceiling Michelangelo painted between 1508 and 1512 and the massive wall fresco of the Last Judgment he painted between 1535 and 1541.

As documented by the Vatican Media video team beginning April 28, the din of tourists, constantly reminded that it is a chapel and they must whisper, was replaced with the sounds of hammering and sawing, the ping of metal couplings hitting metal couplings and the thud of the subfloor being laid.

The new floors and a few ramps, set on top of mini-scaffolding, will eliminate most steps and make the chapel more accessible for the cardinals, whose average age is over 70. Rows of tables and chairs will be added along the north and south walls so that the cardinals face each other. The tables closest to the walls will be raised slightly so that the cardinals in the back have a clear view.

While photographers, and tourists with a keen eye, watched from St. Peter’s Square as Vatican firefighters installed a chimney on the chapel roof May 2, Vatican Media photographers documented what was happening inside.

Two stoves, connected by a copper pipe, were installed: one to burn ballots and the other to burn chemicals to create either dark black or bright white smoke to let the public know if a pope was elected or not.

Before the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, the ballots were burned with wet or dry straw, which produced the right color, but never really created enough smoke to offer a clear signal.

Maintaining secrecy is part of the cardinals’ oath, so technicians will sweep the chapel for electronic surveillance or recording devices before the conclave.

Before the 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, then-Vatican spokesman, told reporters that jamming devices are used to disable cellphone signals, but that they are not installed under the false flooring as often is reported.

In 2003, two years before his death, St. John Paul II reflected on his experiences in the Sistine Chapel in a series of poems “Roman Triptych.”

He wrote about the two conclaves of 1978 – the first that elected Pope John Paul I and then the conclave that elected him.

“It is here, at the feet of this marvelous Sistine profusion of color that the Cardinals gather – a community responsible for the legacy of the keys of the Kingdom,” St. John Paul wrote. “They come right here. And once more Michelangelo wraps them in his vision.”

That vision, he wrote, begins with the “creating hand” of God giving life to Adam and ends with the Last Judgment. But it also includes Jesus telling St. Peter in Matthew 16:19: “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

“It is necessary that during the Conclave, Michelangelo teach them,” the late pope wrote. “Do not forget: ‘Omnia nuda et aperta sunt ante oculos Eius’ (‘All things are laid bare and open before his eyes’). You who see all — point to him! He will point him out.”