January 29, 2024 / 12:01 PM
In an interview published this Monday, January 29, in the Italian newspaper The printPope Francis shares, among other topics, what the “campaign” that defined his election was like in the conclave of cardinals held in March 2013.
When remembering his election in March 2013, the Holy Father reported that after speaking in the general congregation with the cardinals, before the conclave, “there was applause, unprecedented in that context.” “But I had not sensed what many later revealed to me: that speech was my ‘condemnation’.”
The Pope later recalled that when leaving the synod hall he met “an English-speaking cardinal who saw me and exclaimed: ‘What you said is beautiful! Beautiful beautiful. We want a Pope like you.’ And he had not realized the campaign that was being born to elect me.”