c. 2005 Religion News Service

Report Provides New Details of Secret Election of New Pope

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina received enough votes during the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI to have blocked the pontiff’s election, according to a detailed report published Friday (Sept. 23) in Italy.

The report, published in the quarterly review Limes, draws from the diary of an anonymous cardinal who voted in the April conclave. In leaking his diary, the author appears to have compromised the oath of secrecy that all cardinals took upon entering the conclave.

According to the account, support for the Argentine peaked at the third ballot with 40 votes _ the exact number of votes required to block the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s candidacy. On the same ballot, Ratzinger received 72 votes _ five votes shy of the quorum. A total of 115 Cardinals voted in the conclave.

Bergoglio, who emerged as a dark horse candidate weeks before the conclave, built momentum throughout the conclave, receiving 10 votes to Ratzinger’s 47 on the opening ballot, which was held on the evening of April 18. The following day, he received 35 votes on the second ballot while Ratzinger garnered 65, the report said.

The diary is unclear as to why Bergoglio’s candidacy faltered in the fourth and final vote that elected Ratzinger. But the report suggests that Bergoglio appeared reticent to ultimately challenge Ratzinger for the papacy.

Describing Bergoglio casting his vote beneath Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” fresco, the anonymous cardinal wrote: “He had his face fixed on the image of Christ judging the souls at the end of time. A suffering face that implored: God, don’t do this to me.”

In the run-up to the conclave, hopes were high that the first Latin American pope would be elected due to the high proportion of Catholics living on the continent.

Following the conclave, Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels told reporters that “this conclave tells us that the church is not ready for a Latin American pope.”

Some reports following Benedict’s election said that Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the former archbishop of Milan, was Ratzinger’s main rival. According to the diary, however, Martini received nine votes in the opening ballot and then dropped out of contention.

_ Stacy Meichtry

Rutgers University Students Prepare for Dalai Lama

(RNS) Can Western notions of God survive critical thinking?

How can people avoid everyday opportunities for evil?

And what’s the best way to stay spiritually mindful in upsetting places like, say, your car at rush hour?

These are among the 300 questions written by Rutgers University students that will be given to the Dalai Lama, the congenial spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism, before his visit to Rutgers Stadium on Sunday (Sept. 25).

The 41,000-seat Rutgers Stadium in New Brunswick, N.J., is expected to be filled for the Dalai Lama’s 90-minute appearance, starting at 10:30 a.m. He will deliver a public lecture titled “Peace, War and Reconciliation” and then answer some of the students’ questions, only a few of which relate to Tibetan Buddhism. Indeed, just a minority of the crowd is expected to be Buddhist, as the Dalai Lama, viewed as a universal force for compassion, appeals to many Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Jews.

In 1989, the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent struggle against Chinese rule of Tibet. With his home base in Dharamsala, India, he has used trips abroad to lobby foreign leaders to pressure Chinese leadership to allow Tibetan autonomy.

“This man probably has more noncontroversial recognition and celebrity than anyone on the planet,” said G. Howard Miller, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has taught about religion and popular culture. “In our culture we are so starved for celebrities … whom we can unreservedly honor as men and women of integrity.”

_ Jeff Diamant

Religious Investors Focus on China

NEW YORK (RNS) A group of religious investors is exploring how American corporations in China can positively impact the booming nation’s human rights and environmental practices.

“You can’t talk about human rights and not talk about China,” said Sister Patricia Wolf, director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which hosted a panel discussion and fundraiser on the subject Thursday (Sept. 22). The Manhattan-based organization seeks to leverage the power of its faith-based institutional investors to improve corporate social policies.

With China’s enormous economic growth comes vulnerabilities, panelists said, that socially conscious investors should view as opportunities.

“China’s growing pains are wide-ranging: energy constraints, environmental degradation, public health issues, rising labor costs and protests,” said keynote speaker Christine Loh, chief executive of a think tank for economic and social issues in Hong Kong and China.

Loh said American corporations must help China to “leapfrog” over these hurdles if they are to have any impact.

“At the back of their minds,” she said of the Chinese, “they think the West wants to hold them back.”

She and other speakers said American investors must engage the Chinese in a culturally sensitive way, without compromising demands for workers’ rights and environmentally sound practices.

“Before they’re criticized publicly for contributing to environmental degradation or labor abuses, companies should explore how they can do business in China’s dynamic manufacturing base without adding to the problems there,” said the Rev. David Schilling of the Interfaith Center, which estimates that its members hold $110 billion in portfolio assets.

Speakers said activists must focus their efforts on high-impact industries and dense manufacturing zones, like Guangdong province, where the minimum wage for 26 million workers is $62 a month, according to the center’s research staff. Wal-Mart alone has 4,400 factories in the province.

Panelists included business executives from Ford and Walt Disney. Both employ labor codes in their China factories that the Interfaith Center helped them develop.

“It is imperative for people of faith and religious leaders to be involved in human rights issues,” said Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, Interfaith Center member and a director of The Shefa Fund for socially responsible Jewish investors. “We have a certain moral voice.”

_ Nicole LaRosa

Despite Protest, Catholic Priest Remains in Rwandan Prison

PARIS (RNS) More than two weeks after his arrest in Rwanda on charges of complicity in the country’s 1994 genocide, a Belgium priest remains in prison as his order continues to protest his innocence.

“It is completely incomprehensible to us,” said the Rev. Gerard Chabanon, superior general of the Missionaries of Africa, referring to the arrest of 60-year-old Guy Theunis, a member of the missionary White Fathers order.

“He’s totally innocent,” Chabanon added in a telephone interview from his office in Rome. “He should be released as soon as possible.”

Theunis was arrested at the Kigali, Rwanda, airport Sept. 6, en route to Brussels after a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwanda’s popular tribunal has accused the Belgian priest of helping incite the ethnic genocide that killed upwards of 800,000 people there.

In particular, it suggests he wrote articles inciting violence for a publication called Dialogue at the time, and allegedly minimized the scope of the genocide.

But Theunis’ order argues the priest had instead worked hard to promote peace between Rwanda’s ethnic Hutus and Tutsis when he served in the country between 1970 and 1994. He fled the country with other Belgian expatriates when the genocide began.

“Father Theunis was very involved in defending human rights in Rwanda,” Chabanon said. “He was working for nonviolence and reconciliation.”

Chabanon said the priest was in good mental and physical condition. Members of the White Fathers order in Rwanda visit him daily, Chabanon said, as does a diplomat from the Belgium consulate in Kigali.

“He’s able to face this trial, and what is happening to him,” Chabanon added of Theunis. “But we’re still very concerned.”

Founded in 1868 in Algiers, the White Fathers order counts more than 1,700 missionaries, roughly half of them working in Africa. Its membership is declining steadily, Chabanon said, as missionaries die and too few are recruited to replace them.

_ Elizabeth Bryant

Quote of the Day: Sarah Ansari, seller of modest clothing in San Diego

(RNS) “I don’t think there’s anything in Islam that precludes women from looking attractive or professional. No one says you have to look like a bag lady. Actually, the Prophet (Muhammad) was known for wearing perfume, being clean and very well-dressed.”

_ Sarah Ansari, co-owner of Artizara.com, a San Diego-based company that specializes in modest clothing. She was quoted by The Washington Post.

MO/PH END RNS