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News 12 Staff

NJPP53B

Welcome back to New Jersey Power and Politics. This coming week, the College of Cardinals will convene to elect a new pope, a process that will end with white smoke billowing from the Sistine Chapel chimney, tradition and ritual steeped in reverence. Joining me now is someone who can walk us through what will play out behind the scenes in the coming days and someone who has spoken to us here and joined me here at News 12 many years ago. You spoke to us, I believe when when Pope Francis was elected. As well, it's true, it's very nice to welcome Father Guy Sylvester from Saint Mary's Star of the Sea Church in South Amboy, uh, also the director of Ecumenical and Interfaith affairs with the diocese of Mautchen. It's great to see you. Nice to be back. Thank you. All right, we've got a lot of ground to cover, uh, and, and, and I, I know that you are so into the history and to the nuance of electing a pope and papal affairs. Um, first, a question that I. I'm not sure many people think about are there politics? Is there something political that goes into choosing a new pope? Absolutely, because where there's people there's politics. Human beings are not immune from that, nor are they within the church. What I would say is there's not politics in the sense that we think of it in government politics. There's not active campaigning. Uh, that is actually in several of the papal documents laying out instructions for the conclave. There are exhortations against that. You can't campaign to be Pope, and people are not supposed to put factions together trying to influence others. Nevertheless, there is still politics. People are going to look at not only the situation of the church, but the situation in the world and then there there is going to be a certain amount of politicking going on back and forth. It's, it's just part of being human. Could there be perhaps a swing in the ideological stance of the next pope compared to how Pope Francis felt on numerous issues? I mean you just spoke about the politics of the world in which we live. Obviously Pope Francis was known as a pope of the people, um, and some saw his comments about the LGBTQ community as as a shift towards acceptance over the years, but he also. He had approved a decree that ruled out blessings of same-sex marriage. So could we see a shift in some of these things? Yes, we could. That would make perfect sense. There would be those who would say that they would be expecting a shift after a pontificate of 12 years actually had just started his 13th year as Pope. That's considered a decent length for a pontificate, and there would be many that would say. Now we need to have somebody that has a fresh perspective on this, so maybe we should look for somebody who is more theologically conservative or just more ideologically different. And also while Pope Francis certainly had to deal with the events of the last 12 years, the world is a very different place now than it was 12 years ago when he was elected. So what they might have been looking for 12 years ago is very different than the kind of pope that they might be looking for now. Survivors and victims' advocates of uh clergy sexual abuse have continued to criticize the Vatican's slow response uh and pace on reform. Do you think that factors in to the election of a new pope at all? I would hope that it does. There's no guarantee of that, but I would hope that the men who are now at the upper echelon of the church's government, the College of Cardinals, will look at that and see that there has been a slowness in the response. Maybe they didn't perceive it to be slow, but the perception of the people, especially victims and victims' advocates, is that the church has been a little too slow in responding. And so perhaps they would be looking for somebody who would be more bold in in that area being able to act more decisively and more quickly. All right, so walk us through the process, the behind the scenes where we are this weekend and then as conclave begins, walk us through the voting process. Well this weekend, of course we're just finishing up the official mourning period for Pope Francis and things have tended. Focus on mourning and grieving and laying him to rest, but now things are going to shift very definitely into high gear. The pre-conclave meetings that are called congregations are of tremendous importance. They include all of the cardinals, not just the ones who are under the age of 80 and therefore voting, but all 252 members of the College of Cardinals can be there, and this is the time in which people are going to try. Each individual cardinal will be determining a candidate because when they go into the conclave on Wednesday after the ceremonial entrance and the oath taking, they're going to take the first ballot right then on Wednesday evening. That usually acts as a kind of a bellwether. They can see who people are thinking of, and it might even create a kind of a slate of candidates, maybe those that get the 10 top most votes, and then people will start to consider those candidates more seriously. So there could be. A perceived front runner, but we, we don't know who that is. That's right and and we're not going to know. No, in fact, we're never supposed to know, but invariably after conclaves are over 234 years or sometimes a cardinal who has written things down to be published after his death will give people some insights into what happened in a conclave. But no, none of us is ever going to know. All we're going to know is the end result. What kind of majority is needed? They have to have a 2/3 majority of the 133 voting members. So usually they try to get an even bigger majority than that. It would be ideal to have somebody elected unanimously or close to unanimously, but as long as one candidate achieves 2/3 of the majority, then he becomes Pope. And then of course we see the white smoke, yes, uh, from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. Now, now once once conclave begins, um, what's permissible in terms of when, when you leave the Sistine Chapel, etc. There is still absolutely no communication whatsoever with the outside world. There, there are staff people in the Vatican, cooks, people to help, you know, take care of the nuts and bolts of getting around as an infirmary staff, etc. They are also sworn to secrecy. They have to take their own separate oath and sign it in writing, so there is no communication, even the people that are gonna drive the small bus. That take the cardinals from the Doma Santa Marta across the Vatican to the Apostolic Palace, they are all sworn to secrecy, so there is absolutely no communication inside or outside of the Vatican. There are only two people who are allowed to communicate with the outside world. One is the vicar general for Rome because he sometimes may have to take care of something involving the running of the Roman. And the other one is the major penitentiary of the church and even then it should only be in absolute necessity. Father Guy Sylvester, it's it's always a pleasure to speak to you. Thank you so much for the pleasure was mine and stay with us. We've got a lot more coming up here on New Jersey Power and Politics. The deadline for a real idea is fast approaching. Many across the states still having trouble getting one. Officials are demanding for a better solution.

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Have you gotten your real ID yet? Now the deadline is Wednesday. State NBC is now launching Real ID Tuesdays in addition to Thursdays because, well, Thursdays alone aren't cutting it. Once the deadline is here, you will need either the real ID or a passport to board an airplane. As we reported, many are struggling to get appointments with the deadline this coming Wednesday, and many waiting until the last minute. A CBS News report last. We said New Jersey was last, with just 17% of state-issued IDs being real IDs. The state says starting on the 20th, more than 5000 slots will be available every two weeks. You can start booking these slots Monday morning, May 5th. A national day of prayer event was held at the White House this week during which President Trump spoke about fighting religious persecution around the world. He also spoke about Tenafly's Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage in Gaza, the president saying we don't know how he's doing right now before saying this to Edan's parents in attendance. Body in Yale cannot imagine. You're pain. I just can't Audie, and. Yale But uh we're all alongside of you. We stand by you. And we're going to We're gonna do everything possible in a very short period of time, you know, as you know, things are heating up there. I got, I've gotten a lot of hostages out. We, we were getting nobody out. A lot of them are out. But they want to do it as slowly as possible because they use them as pawns. It's a horrible thing, but we're working very, very hard to. To save your son, we have news coming out both good and bad, but we're working very hard. And we end the show with sad news this week. Journalists in the state losing a true talent. NJ Advanced Media political reporter Matt Arco passed away at the age of just 39 years old. The news coming as a shock, sparking was a tidal wave of emotional tributes this week. His colleague Brent Johnson, noting how Matt became one of the nation's go to journalists on Chris Christie as he covered his town halls and followed him on the campaign trail. Brent telling me this week Matt was a quintessential reporter, well sourced, curious, insistent, and he was a fantastic person, funny and warm. He made me a better reporter and a person, and he cared a ton about this great crazy state of ours, keeping its residents informed and its leaders with feet to the fire. And on a personal note, I'm grateful to have had Matt right here in studio numerous times over the years, right here on Power and Politics to all of Matt's friends, family, and colleagues. We express our deepest condolences.

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Tom Haas, John Wisniewski and Father Guy Selvester join the show this week.

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