The cardinals voting in their conclave this week are not choosing a successor to Pope Francis, but on the successor to Saint Peter, the apostle who was given the keys to the church by Jesus Christ, the Rev. Rob McKeon, of the Archdiocese of New York, told Newsmax Thursday.
"They're focused on a successor to Saint Peter and all those [since] Peter, all the way up to this present day," McKeon said in an interview airing on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "That's part of why they've been spending so much time in prayer, because that has to continue to be renewed in their hearts and minds, guided by the Holy Spirit, that you are here to choose a successor of Saint Peter."
The cardinals did not on Thursday, after a third round of voting, agree on the next leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church. The next Pope must secure a necessary two-thirds majority, or 89 votes, of the 133 cardinals participating in the conclave.
The next Pope, McKeon said, will be the Vicar of Christ and should be "someone who's going to be excellent at not only speaking and preaching and teaching the truth of Christ, but also one who will model that and who they are, the way they are, in their own spirituality and their own personality."
Meanwhile, McKeon noted that the experience of selecting a new Pope is met with excitement among the billions of members of the Catholic Church.
"Part of it is the, as you know, the way that is developed in the church, this great affection for the Pope," he said. "He's called the Vicar of Christ, so that he truly is a unifying factor for the church throughout the world. And because of that, there's great affection, you know, for a Pope."
The anticipation, McKeon added, is "rooted in good virtue. We want to have a shepherd on this Earth that helps to guide us like Christ guided the apostles and guided the disciples. He continues to do that in a very powerful way in today's world."
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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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