Cardinal Rueda affirms that the conclave is different from the election of a president

The Colombian cardinal Luis José Rueda Aparicio said that the atmosphere that is lived these days among the cardinals is “very different” to which the people who associate the conclave “with a democratic election of a president.”

From Rome, where he is to participate as a cardinal, the archbishop of Bogotá explained in a video of the Colombian episcopate how the Cardinal College lives on the days before the start of the conclave, which will begin on Wednesday, May 7.

“It is a very different environment from what the common people can imagine, because some associate it with a democratic election of a president, a ruler of some country or some territory and it turns out that it is not part of an environment of prayer from beginning to end,” he said.

“The great protagonist is the Holy Spirit, he is the one who leads, he is the one who takes the reins of the history of the Church,” he added.

Since Wednesday, they will meet in the Sistine 133 electrical cardinals from 71 countries, which makes the next conclave the largest and most universal in the history of the Catholic Church.

In that sense, the Archbishop indicated that these days of general congregations have served to know each other among the purple.

Cardinal Rueda Aparicio also remembered the late Pope Francis, who “is a ripe fruit of the evangelization of Latin America”, of the experience of “those bishops close to the parish communities, to all the people who live the hope of the Latin American people, who puts it in Christ Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

Finally, the archbishop asked the faithful to continue praying so that the election “be according to the will of God the Father.” “This moment is a moment of church and, whatever it is, is the chosen one of the Lord, is the chosen one of Jesus Christ the Lord,” he said.