Exit tourists. Enter cardinals. The Vatican has closed the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will gather next week for the conclave to elect the next pope after the death of Pope Francis on April 21 at age 88. Francis was buried Saturday after a funeral in St. Peter’s Square that gathered world leaders and hundreds of thousands of others, and a nine-day period of mourning is continuing before the conclave can start.
But the church is at the same time turning its attention to the next steps.
Key is preparing the Sistine Chapel for the red-robed cardinals who will gather at the Vatican in the heart of Rome to choose the next pope in an ancient process fictionalized in the 2024 film “Conclave.”
Those visitors who managed to enter on Sunday considered themselves lucky, since there is no telling how long the conclave will last, and how long the gem of the Vatican Museums will remain off-limits.
Catholic cardinals on Monday set May 7 as the start date for the conclave after arriving for the first day of informal meetings following Francis’ funeral Saturday
When the conclave starts, the cardinals will enter solemnly to participate in a secretive process said to be guided by the holy spirit that will result in the selection of the next leader of the 1.4 billion-strong Catholic church.
For inspiration, the cardinals will also have the great beauty of the frescoes painted by Michelangelo and other renowned Renaissance artists. The most recognizable is Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, showing God’s outstretched hand imparting the divine spark of life to the first man.
The chapel is named after Pope Sixtus IV, an art patron who oversaw the construction of the main papal chapel in the 15th century. But it was a later pontiff, Pope Julius II, who commissioned the works by Michelangelo, who painted the ceiling depicting scenes from Genesis from 1508 and 1512 and later returned to paint the Last Judgement on one of the walls.
The secretive process is part of a tradition aimed at preserving the vote from external interference. But when a pope is finally chosen, white smoke will rise and bells will toll.
And undoubtedly tourists will soon be able to return.
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