A cardinal from Guelph is among the 135 cardinals who will choose Pope Francis’s successor.
Cardinal Thomas Collins arrived in Rome on Tuesday, where he’ll be part of a conclave for just the second time in his life.
He said he’s been participating in daily meetings with other cardinals ahead of Francis’s funeral on Saturday. Collins said the dean of the College of Cardinals runs the meetings, which begin at 9 a.m. and discuss issues relating to the church.
A conclave will begin following a period of mourning, which lasts nine days.
“We’re isolated from the world then, so we can have the serenity and peace and freedom to pray and select on who we should vote for as the new pope,” Collins said.
The 78-year-old said there are more than 250 cardinals in attendance, however, many of them are over the age of 80. You have to be under 80 as a cardinal elector to vote, according to Collins.
“Everyone has a vote; the most junior, most senior cardinals, it doesn’t matter. Everyone has a vote,” he said.
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He said they pray before voting for a new pope. The votes are written on cards and put in a silver bowl before they’re read out.
Collins has been part of the conclave only one other time in his life, in 2013, when he had only been a cardinal for a year.
He said he’s more familiar with the process than he was over a decade ago.
Collins is one of five cardinals from Canada, and he said it’ll be an amazing feeling to represent the Royal City in Rome.
Although he did not meet Pope Francis often, he said he was a man who loved the poor and reached out to those who suffered.
“I think that was a great mark of his time as pope. And of course, he, himself, like Pope John Paul II, gave a great witness to us, a great example to us, in his latter part of his life as he experienced the mystery of suffering and offered up for the good of all of us,” he said.
Pope Francis died on Monday after suffering a stroke and heart failure at 88 years old.
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