Inside the sunlit lobby with its polished marble floors and reception desk blanketed with pages of guest lists, the Santa Marta Residence looks like any other lavish hotel in the heart of Rome.
But a bronze bust of Pope John Paul II greeting visitors who enter through the hotel's sliding glass doors indicates that this is no ordinary inn.
The 117 cardinals arriving from all around the world to elect the pope's successor need a place to stay, so he had a US$20 million hotel built for them behind the Vatican's guarded gates. From the Santa Marta the cardinals have only a short stroll or ride behind St. Peter's Basilica to the Sistine Chapel, where the voting will take place.
PHOTO: EPA
On Monday morning the pale brick five-story building seemed poised to receive its special guests. The antique tables with their gold-leaf legs were dusted and polished. A small elevator stood ready to serve the more elderly and infirm cardinals. A black placard indicated the dining room in three languages. The Vatican staff members who usually live there are moving out for the duration.
Yet for all its opulent touches and doting service -- chefs, doctors and priests to hear confessions are all on call -- the really revolutionary changes are tucked in the hotel's nearly 110 suites and score of single rooms.
"Miracle at the Conclave: The Cardinal Will Have a Shower," said a headline in the Italian magazine L'espresso last year, a reference to the shabby accommodations the last time a pope was selected.
The private bathrooms will surely be appreciated, but some people who follow the Vatican have raised the question of whether all of the hotel's conveniences might cause the cardinals to delay finishing the job of choosing a pope and checking out.
Under the rules, if two-thirds of the cardinals fail to agree on a single candidate by the end of the second week of the conclave, a simple majority will suffice. That may tempt some cardinals to stall until their preferred candidate gains enough support to win more than half of the vote and ascend the throne of Peter.
But others say that after years of having a pope in failing health at the helm of the Roman Catholic Church, the cardinals will want to move quickly so that his successor can tackle the raft of pressing issues facing the church.
In the past they needed plenty of prodding.
In 1271, after the papal throne was vacant for three years, anxious Catholics locked up the indecisive cardinals in a crumbling building and put them on a strict diet of bread and water until they made a decision. For an extra dose of motivation, the roof was removed. After enduring rain and harsh sunshine, the cardinals finally elected Pope Gregory X.
Conditions had improved by 1978, the year of the last conclave, but compared with the lifestyle that most cardinals are used to, the shelter was very modest. Beds were on loan from a local missionary college; the lamps were too weak to read by. The extent of the luxuries were a washbasin and some soap, some notepaper and a desk to write on.
Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, the archbishop of Genoa at the time, found much to be desired during his stay in Rome. He referred to his quarters during the brutal Rome summer of August 1978 as an "airless tomb."
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS