The Papal Conclaves: As They Were and As They Are (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Papal Conclaves: As They Were and as They Are

But the internal and essential business of the election will, there can be little doubt, be transacted strictly according to the prescribed forms. And if any differ ence shall be observed to exist in those respects which have any real influence on the election, it will be found in this, that the civil governments of Europe will have to use a vulgar but expressive phrasefimuch less say in the matter than has heretofore been the case, and much less means of making any say which they may wish to utter, heard or attended to. The election will be, it may be predicted, an especially pure one - that is to say, it will be the real object of probably all the electors to choose the man whom they think to be the most fitted and the most capable of serving the interests of the Church as they are understood by the Romish hierarchy. That there may be great differences of Opinion among men all equally desirous of serving those interests, is exceed ingly probable. But if there be, as it may be with tolerable certainty conjectured that there are, two cur rents of Opinion in the Sacred College on the great subject of the earnest desires of all its members, it is wholly impossible for the lay world - nay, it is probably impossible for their Eminences themselves - to predict which of these two currents is likely to prove the stronger in the Conclave.

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