Embarrassing: Francis' Account of the Conclave Full of Inaccuracies
Francis claims that he was "used" by cardinals who wanted to block the election of Cardinal Ratzinger, and that he opened the way for Ratzinger's election by telling Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos that he wouldn't accept an election, so that the 40 votes he had received went to Ratzinger, who was then elected.
In Francis's version, his withdrawal was decisive in breaking the deadlock and leading to Ratzinger's election.
According to what Lucio Brunelli, a partisan of Francis, wrote about the 2005 conclave, Bergoglio did indeed receive 40 votes on the third ballot.
However, according to an anonymous cardinal who broke his conclave oath and whose diary was published by Brunelli, on the fourth ballot the votes for Bergoglio did not go to zero, as an "announced" withdrawal of a candidate would have done. There were still 26 votes for Bergoglio and all the others for Ratzinger.
A worse inaccuracy concerns the two-thirds majority that according to Francis was needed for Ratzinger's election. However, a conclave regulation in force since 1996 had removed the two-thirds quorum up from a certain point and was only reinstated by Benedict in 2007.
So with or without the votes for Bergoglio, Ratzinger would have been elected later with an absolute majority.
The pompous oath that the hypocritical cardinals take before the conclave should be abolished because it has become an embarrassment before man and beast.
Picture: © Mazur, CC BY-NC-SA, #newsBlgiigbwtp
