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Canon lawyer denies involvement in papal election reform, calling reports ‘a pure lie’

Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda, SJ, takes possession of his titular church in Rome, the Church of the Gesù, on Dec. 8, 2022. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Nov 6, 2023 / 08:55 am (CNA).

A cardinal and canon lawyer has denied reports that he is involved in changing the papal election process to make it more synodal.

The Pillar and The Remnant websites reported Nov. 4 that Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda, an expert in Church law closely associated with the Vatican, had been tasked by Pope Francis with drafting revisions to conclaves.

The changes being considered, they reported, include changing pre-conclave meetings, called general congregations, to employ Synod on Synodality-style small group discussions and limiting participation in those meetings to cardinals eligible to vote, that is, cardinals under 80.

“I do not know anything about it and any implication I have in it is a pure lie,” Ghirlanda told EWTN News via email on Monday morning.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni also denied knowledge of such a document in a statement to CNA Nov. 6.

The Remnant also reported Nov. 4 that Pope Francis is considering a proposal by Ghirlanda to allow lay people to participate in the conclave, including the vote for a new pope.

The Pillar, citing “a senior canon lawyer close to the Vatican,” reported that knowledge of the process to reform conclaves “is widespread in Vatican canonical circles, as is the role of Cardinal Ghirlanda.”

General congregations are preparatory meetings of the College of Cardinals held every day before the start of the election. They are a time for cardinals to familiarize themselves with the regulations concerning conclaves and, according to the norms in force, to “express their views on possible problems, ask for explanations in case of doubt and make suggestions.”

During general congregations, cardinals can address the entire college. But one of the proposed changes, according to The Pillar, is to make these exchanges into “spiritual conversations” of smaller groups of cardinals, similar to the small-group discussions at the Synod on Synodality assembly in October.

The papal election process and the sede vacante, the period between a pope’s death or resignation and the election of his successor, are regulated by St. Pope John Paul II’s 1996 apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis and Pope Francis’ 2022 apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium.

Pope Benedict XVI made two revisions to Universi Dominici Gregis during his papacy, stipulating that in case of a deadlock, the election must be decided by a two-third majority, instead of a simple majority, and that a conclave can start sooner or later than 15 days after a pope’s death.

Conclaves, which take place in the Sistine Chapel, are held under strict secrecy. The cardinals who participate take an oath to “observe absolute and perpetual secrecy” about the ballots and their scrutiny from anyone outside the College of Cardinals under penalty of automatic excommunication.

According to the law of the Holy See, during a sede vacante, “all heads of curial institutions and members cease from their office,” though secretaries “attend to the ordinary governance of curial institutions, taking care of ordinary business only.”

Pope Francis ruled earlier this year that the office of the Auditor General, which is responsible for auditing the financial statements of the Holy See and the Vatican City State, and which does not have a secretary, may also continue its “ordinary administration” in the case of a vacant papal see.

The other positions which remain in place during a sede vacante are the major penitentiary, who deals with issues relating to the sacrament of confession and indulgences, the camerlengo, who oversees the preparations for a papal conclave and manages the administration of the Holy See during the interregnum, and the papal almoner.


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6 Comments

  1. We read: “‘The Pillar, citing “a senior canon lawyer close to the Vatican,’ reported that knowledge of the process to reform conclaves ‘is widespread in Vatican canonical circles, as is the role of Cardinal Ghirlanda’.”

    Might we find it very hard to believe that such an agenda is NOT in the works?

    Consider the pattern…a curious footnote (#351) is loaded onto Amoris Laetitia; then a validating “synodality” was loaded onto a Synod on Young People (2018); then the worst feature of the German Synodal Way (mixed voting) was loaded onto Synod 2023; and now the synodal roundtables are to be loaded onto the next conclave. Or, at least the proposal will likely be loaded onto the awaited script for Synod 2024. Yes?

    As they say in criminal investigations: the motive, the means, and the opportunity. But, who am I to judge?

  2. Who does intrigue better? Byzantium of old seemed to have invented duplicity and veiled policy. Today’s Vatican is no slouch in that regard. Example. The last ten years. When was the last time an announcement didn’t compel the reader to contemplate at length its possible meanings?
    Rumours of small round table discussion groups including laity to elect a new pontiff. Or is that banter of runaway imagination? So bizarre a proposal would be laughed off, if it weren’t for the Synodality obsession, synodal thinking, synodal outlook, synodal enlightenment, the incantation of some amorphous mystery reality. Why, even His Holiness had a syndal conference with thousands of children eliciting their views on climate, th environment, war and peace. Are we being drawn into a monumental abstraction from following our commitment to Christ?

  3. In this “pontificate” we have all learned after more than 10 years that the truth is the opposite of what the Vatican apparatchiks and their puppet-dictator tell us.

  4. If ever the the caution “where there is smoke there is fire” was more apropos it is the Bergoglian Vatican. Conclave reimaging according to the publicized model? If not now, later. In the meantime something equally perverse but less shocking will come across the desk and the groundlings will breathe a sigh of relief. This is the way they handle the faithful, a technique very much globalist manipulation in character.
    The current pontificate has abandoned Catholic reasoning and no longer can expect any credence from faithful laity who see through the theatrics and are revolted by the actors. And everyone of the actors require a firm and just consequence.

  5. The only thing that surprises me is that there are no proposals for allowing the possibility of a female (or trans male) Marxist atheist to not only participate in the conclave but be elected.

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