From Rome, where he arrived to participate in the conclave that will choose the successor of Pope Francis, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, Archbishop of Newark (United States), encouraged in Spanish to pray for the “sacred task” of the cardinals voters to choose the new Pope.
“Although a week is still missing for the official opening of the conclave, the Cardinals College is already gathering to pray, reflect and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit while preparing for the sacred task of choosing the next successor of St. Peter,” says the purple in a message published on April 29 on the website of his archdiocese.
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Tobin, who will turn 73 in a few days and that he is one of the 133 cardinals that will be part of the conclave since May 7, stressed that “there is a spirit of deep confidence, a serene security that Christ himself is leading his church, as he has always done. We advance not with fear but with faith.”
“The questions we ask each other here are very similar to the discernment of the Church and our Archdiocese: Where are we? Where the Lord calls us? How will we get there together?”
For all that, the Cardinal asked everyone to “humbly be present at his time with the Lord to the cardinals. While they pray for the rest of the soul of our beloved Holy Father, please also pray for the Holy Spirit to guide the Church during this sacred time of renewal.”
Tobin also expressed his sadness for the death of Pope Francis and highlighted the footprint he has left throughout the world, which could be perceived in the hundreds of thousands of people who arrived in Rome to say goodbye to him.
“Although we cry his departure we do not do it without hope. We trust that now he contemplates the face of the Lord who served with such loyalty. His words, his prayers and his example remain with us as an indelible treasure for the Church and for the world.”
To conclude, Cardinal Tobin said he has the faithful “in my prayers every day. Christ has risen, that he fill us with the hope and peace that only he can give.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.