Guelph's Cardinal Thomas Collins offers a glimpse into the real conclave
This will be the 2nd time Collins will help choose a new pope
Cardinal Thomas Collins has no interest in seeing the film Conclave which tells the fictitious story of the selection of a new pope.
Why would he? He's already been involved in a real one, and is about to take part in a second.
The first was in 2013 when Pope Francis became pontiff. Next month, the Archbishop Emeritus of Toronto will enter his second conclave to choose Francis' successor.
A conclave to choose a new pope normally takes place 15 to 20 days after the death of a pontiff, meaning it should not start before May 6.
Cardinal Collins was born and raised in Guelph and was ordained a priest in 1973 with the Hamilton Diocese.
He was elected to the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
Collins has retired as archbishop and now takes part in leading religious retreats.
He spoke with CBC K-W's Joe Pavia from Rome ahead of the funeral for Pope Francis and offered a glimpse into the real conclave.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Audio of the interview can be found at the bottom of this article.
Joe Pavia: What is the legacy that Pope Francis has left for you? What will you remember him for?
Cardinal Thomas Collins: Well, every pope has a different style, a different way of doing things. And I think that Pope Francis was very much interested in reaching out to people who are a poor and struggling people, or people that are on the margins. And that's always an important part of our Christian faith.
He would look to the example of the Good Samaritan as being a very important model for our faith. I think that would be his kind of his legacy.
Joe Pavia: Can you offer some reflection on Saturday's funeral service at St. Peter's Basilica?
Cardinal Thomas Collins: It'll be in front of St. Peter's. And then we all come out to celebrate mass. Leaders of the world will be there as well.
And then the body of the Holy Father will be taken back into St. Peter's. And then it will be taken immediately to another church, St. Mary Major, which he loved. He always would go there before and after a trip around the world. And it's the oldest Marian church in honour of Our Lady in Rome. And he will be buried there, not in St. Peter's.
This is a very solemn moment, a very significant one. I think all of us cardinals are just asking everyone, all the 1.5 billion Catholics and everybody else, all of our dear friends and neighbours of other faiths, to pray for us as we enter into this most solemn and profound historical responsibility we have, to choose the next successor of Saint Peter.
And that's the thing we're all entering is a very prayerful process. And it's just something that I found my other time doing this to be most inspiring. You know, it's just very inspiring.
Joe Pavia: What can you tell us then about what happens inside the conclave? I'm not sure if you saw the movie Conclave yourself?
Cardinal Thomas Collins: I'm not going to see the movie.
The premise of the movie is that the pope can sort of secretly name a cardinal and the guy shows up with the letter they say 'Oh my gosh, he's a cardinal who knew! Come on in!' And that just doesn't happen.
The pope can hold off the public naming of a person because they're in danger, basically, but they don't become a cardinal really until — it has to be publicly announced. And so when they can't even get the basic premise of the movie right kind of makes you wonder about the rest of it.
But I've been through a real conclave and the real conclave is beautiful. It's much more exciting than the phony one.
Joe Pavia: Take us through what happens at a real conclave.
Cardinal Thomas Collins: It's a very prayerful thing and it's remarkable. The conclave I went to before there were 117 electors, while there 135 this time. The Holy Father named a lot more and so we were just meeting the cardinals who are arriving in Rome, bit by bit.
Altogether there are 252 if you count the ones over the age of 80 and they have a right to come. They don't have to come, but the ones who are under 80 have to come. It's an obligation that we have to be there.
And so we've been having these meetings in the morning. We begin with a prayer, then the new ones, newly arrived, take the oath of office. And then we discuss different issues like the setting up the funeral and management type issues of organizing it.
And then gradually after the funeral, from my experience of the last conclave, that will shift then to the needs of the church.
And we have some external people come in and talk to us about spiritual guidance for us and the different departments of the Roman government of the church, explain what their what their needs are.
Then each of the Cardinals would give a little expression of what he felt we needed.
And so it's a very prayerful thing. We begin with a prayer and end with prayer and you have these coffee breaks halfway through, which are actually very important because the cardinals get to talk to one another and get to know one another a bit more. So that's a useful thing.
But once we call the conclave itself... we go disperse to the churches in Rome. I'm the Cardinal Priest of St. Patrick's Church. So I went to my parish because all the cardinals are basically clergy of Rome, honorary. We pray with the people of Rome and then we're going to elect their bishop.
And once you go into Santa Marta's House, this big residence, [adjacent to St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City] it's like going into an airport. You go through a metal detector and you have yourself scanned and you go in and then they take you up to the room and they cut the seal on the door. You go in. And these rooms are used by priests who work in the Vatican when there's not a conclave, but they're meant for a conclave.
And the slots on the windows are all shut, the telephones are cut, their TV is cut and they got jamming devices on the roof. So you were really isolated. And that's so you can think without pressure. Gives you the freedom to think. That's what conclave means with the key. That's what it means. They lock you in.
Joe Pavia: There have been media stories about front runners to be pope. Are cardinals, if I could use the term, and maybe this is not correct ... lobbying for the role?
Cardinal Thomas Collins: Every cardinal obviously has a lot of experience and has very strong views on where the direction of the church should go, and maybe people who they think would be the one to lead the church the way that the Lord wants it to go.
And that's all brought out in the little speeches the cardinals can make to just give their views to the other cardinals. They're meeting all the time, you know, and saying 'Who do you think should be the pope?' That's what we're there for basically. And then praying about it.
I was very impressed during the last conclave there were a lot of groups getting together. And I went to two of them last time where a whole bunch of cardinals get together for dinner and then say, 'Well, what do you think? Who do you think would be good?' And they gave their views, which is the point of what we're doing.
But then once you get in there, there's no nomination for pope.
You just take the first ballot and everyone votes and it's a little card that says 'I choose for pope' and a line.
You write the name and you go up. You look up at the Last Judgment by Michelangelo with all kinds of cardinals and popes going to hell and say, 'I promise that the one I'm voting for is the one I truly believe should be the pope.'
You drop it into this silver kind of a bowl. And once they're all done the countdown, to be sure we got the right number, and then they read out the names.
Each one of us has a little list we can check, check, check as the names are called. So we're all like scrutineers. And every time a ballot is read out it's put on a little string so we don't get them mixed up.
And if we don't get two thirds, they burn them in a little oven at the other end of the Sistine Chapel and the famous black smoke goes up.
Joe Pavia: And then the conversation continues [between the cardinals] before the next ballot?
Cardinal Thomas Collins: The first ballot is generally, you might say, a nominating ballot. You get many people in one vote, two vote, three vote, one vote, but some get 10 or 20 or 30 votes.
And so then we go back, we pray and think and have dinner. And then the next day we come back. And by that time people have chatted about, about, OK, who looks like they're maybe, I don't know, five or six cardinals who are getting double digits of votes, you know, or whatever the number might be.
And so by that time, the next ballot, usually the ones and twos drop off more or less, and numbers start accumulating towards a few of the cardinals.
And then we take another ballot and another until one of the numbers goes over two thirds.
And when that happens, we finish counting the ballots and then the chief cardinal says 'Do you accept?' And if the cardinal says yes, that's when he becomes the pope.
There's some rare case in history that he wasn't a bishop already, then he'd be ordained a bishop right away. But I mean, they're all bishops pretty well. Absolutely. And so then they ask 'What name do you choose?' And he gives a special name for his time as pope. And he picks whatever his name he wishes to pick.
And then he goes into the room of tears, as they call it, and he comes out dressed in white. And they have a small and medium and a large cassock, just in case. He comes out dressed in white. He looks like the pope and well, he is the pope. And then we all go up and greet him and congratulate him. Then he goes out on the balcony and blesses the world.
It's not a secret process because there's a rule book we follow scrupulously called The Universal Flock. You can get it on the Vatican website. And we just turned the pages and we'll be doing everything, whatever it says to do. So this is not a like what you might call it a hidden process. Who votes for what is obviously a confidential but the process itself is open to anyone who wants to take a look at the Vatican website.
Joe Pavia: Cardinal Collins, any chance you're going to be pope?
Cardinal Thomas Collins: Well...(laughs) Oh my, no. I've been very happy! That's not going to happen. But I think there are several, wonderful cardinals, anyone of whom would be a wonderful pope. And we just have to sort of come to a discernment and pray and hope to God, you know, ask God to guide us to pick whichever is the right one for now. And I'm sure God will help us to do that.
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