Soon-to-be cardinals isolate in pontiff’s hotel ahead of event
will elevate 13 clerics to the College of Cardinals, the elite group of red-robed churchmen whose primary ROME — The Vatican’s task is to elect a new pope. Santa Marta hotel was built It’s the seventh time Francis to sequester cardinals durhas named a new batch of ing papal elections. It’s now cardinals since his election sequestering soon-to-be in 2013. cardinals in town for this The Vatican has said two weekend’s ceremony to get new cardinals won’t make it their red hats: A handful are to Rome for the ceremony, in protective coronavirus known as a consistory, bequarantine, confined to cause of COVID-19 and travtheir rooms on Vatican orel concerns: The Vatican’s ders and getting meals delivambassador to Brunei, Carered to their doors. dinal-designate Cornelius
The 10-day quarantines, Sim, and the archbishop of with COVID-19 tests adminCapiz, Philippines, Cardiistered at the start and nal-designate Jose Advinfinish, are just one example cula. of how Saturday’s ceremony The Vatican is arranging to elevate new cardinals is for them, and any of the like nothing the Holy See cardinals who might not has ever seen. make it, to participate in the
“They told me it would be ceremony remotely from like this, but I didn’t think it their homes. They’ll get would be so strict!” martheir three-pointed “biveled Cardinal- designate retta” hats from a Vatican Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, ambassador or another enthe voy.retiredarchbishopof
Chiapas, Mexico. For those who are partici
During a Zoom call from pating in person, the public his hotel room, Esquivel health crisis has posed an said he had thought there unusual set of challenges. might be some exceptions to Italy, where the pandemic the lockdown for new cardierupted in late February, is nals. “No! Here, it doesn’t in the throes of a second matter if you’re a cardinal or wave. The Vatican has rea pope. The virus doesn’t turned to a modified lockrespect anyone,” he said. down in recent weeks, with
Pope Francis on Saturday the Vatican Museums shuttered and a dozen Swiss Guards testing positive.
Francis, 83, has been criticized for his rather lax mask usage, but he has abided by social distancing measures to a degree. He lives at Santa Marta, where there has been at least one positive case reported in recent months.
Usually, consistories are full of parties and crowds: Cardinals come to town with family, friends and sometimes benefactors and parishioners who get to see the new “princes of the church” up close and then attend receptions and dinners in their honor. Under normal circumstances, the consistory would be followed by “courtesy visits,” where the new cardinals greet well-wishers and the general public from the grandeur of their own reception rooms in the Apostolic Palace or Vatican auditorium.
This year, there will be no courtesy visits, and each cardinal has a 10-person limit for guests. For Esquivel, no one other than his secretary traveled with him from Mexico.
“We don’t have contact with practically anyone. It’s total isolation, but it’s necessary,” he said.