Cardinal José Cobo Cano: The Holy Spirit already knows who his candidates are

Cardinal José Cobo Cano, Archbishop of Madrid (Spain), is in Rome to participate in what will be his first conclave, an appointment to which he goes with “vertigo” but confident, thanks to the prayers of the faithful and the certainty that “the Holy Spirit already knows who his candidates are”.

Many Cardinals took advantage of May 4 – a rest of rest in the general congregations prior to the conclave – to celebrate the Mass in their head of Rome.

Therefore, Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid presided over the Eucharist in the church of Santiago and Monserrat, the home of the Catholics of Spain in the heart of the eternal city.

“I think we see that this is serious,” said the cardinal after the Mass in statements to the media, among which was Aci Press, just three days after the conclave begins in which the next successor of Pedro will be chosen.

The Purpurado Spanish said that at the beginning of the general congregations they were “a little more scattered” and that however now they are “pointing out concrete lines of a profile that we are strucking”, each “from its sensitivity and from the place where it comes from”, something that also feels in the tone of the interventions.

Confident in the prayers of the Church

Cobo Cano was created Cardinal by Pope Francis in the Consistory of September 30, 2023, so this will be his first conclave. Although he reveals that he faces it with a certain vertigo, also due to the “expectation around,” he says he is confident and comforts him “knowing that people are praying.”

“I’m very happy that God already has it thought. I think what we have to do is listen to everyone’s voice a bit, to get stuck,” he added.

The Archbishop of Madrid reiterated his confidence in the people of God and in the prayer of the whole Church, something that also confers a certain “collegial responsibility.”

“The Holy Spirit already knows who his candidates are. Then, it is not so much that we want to impose what each one wants, that that would be a parliamentarism that wins the party of mine, but it is about listening to God also through life in the people of God,” he said.

In this line, he reiterated the importance of listening to the Holy Spirit to “see which is the candidate that God and the Church need at this time above the ideologies of each one, of the interests of each or the particularities. Because the Pope is always the bond of unity.”

The conclave is not a parliament

He also highlighted the union that exists despite the diversity that this conclave presents, the bigger and global of history, underlining the importance of listening to the different sensibilities and realities of the Church.

In this context, he stressed that “each one has their position and can say things, as in any family,” while saying that “there is no confrontation as if it were a parliament. We move away a little from political life and we see that this is something else.”

Despite the differences in opinions, he said that “when we go to the conclave we are prayed and with the Eucharist as the center”, which he referred to as “a compass that is recomposing us. We all have the temptation to make a parliament, and that is not,” he said.

“When we meet, we are no longer rivals, because if we put on the gospel glasses we see that we are Cardinal Brothers, that we are going to the same and makes us recalculate the route at all times if there is mistakes,” he concluded.