God and the Holy Spirit will guide the cardinals in their upcoming vote to select Pope Francis' successor, Monsignor Hilary Franco, the author of "Six Popes" and the adviser to the Office of the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations, told Newsmax Saturday.
The 133 cardinals to be voting for the next pope are observing the Catholic Church's tradition of nine days of Novemdiales Masses in mourning for Pope Francis, beginning with his funeral on April 26 and concluding on May 4, and on May 7 will enter their conclave, Franco told Newsmax's "Saturday Report."
"They have to know each other," he said." This is why the wisdom of the church allows them, you know, to be here like these nine Masses ... those are the nine days that perhaps they could talk to each other."
But they will be called into secrecy next Wednesday, when the cardinals will pray for the Holy Spirit to guide them in the vote for the next pope and leader of the faith for some 1.4 billion Catholics around the world.
"I have all these days, you know, since the 21st, I have had probably 21 interviews and I'm always insisting upon the fact that most probably, if we don't trust in the Holy Spirit, we are going to get the wrong guy," said Franco.
"We do hope and pray that the good Lord and the Holy Spirit will invite the cardinals to vote for the right person, following the footsteps of the great pontiff that we just buried," he added.
Franco said he had known the late Pope since 2002, when he was the archbishop of Buenos Aires.
"Pope Francis was a down-to-earth man," he said. "That's what I liked. You know, all the whatever he wrote, whatever he said in those beautiful speeches, I would recognize myself. I would have done the same thing. I would have, perhaps, you know, made the same speeches, the same sermons. But sometimes, you know, well, some of his actions, you know, were really different from what we expected, you know, but he was full of surprises. And I love surprises, and he loved surprises."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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