What Really Happened at the Conclave

[Pope] Benedict XVI's account: the guillotine, the dizziness… The microculture typical of the conclave. How the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel affected the cardinals. The sign of Jonah

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, May 2, 2005 – In the days immediately following the conclave, the press went berserk providing adventurous reconstructions of the voting, one scrutiny after another.

Placed side by side, most of the reconstructions cancel each other out. But some of them agree – though they differ about the name – in maintaining that during the first scrutinies a strong alternative candidate was offered next to Joseph Ratzinger. So strong, in fact, that this other pulled ahead of Ratzinger for a while.

But Benedict XVI himself soon put an end to these ruminations.

He did so while speaking with some German pilgrims, on the morning of Monday, April 25. Recounting how he had experienced the conclave, he said:

"As the voting process gradually showed me that the guillotine, so to speak, was to fall on me, my head began to spin…"

Further down you will find the pope's complete account, both in the original German version, which was immediately published by the Vatican press office, and in the English translation of the Italian version that appeared two days later in "L'Osservatore Romano."

More.