Top cardinal prays conclave bestows a pope who can ‘awaken’ consciences

Elise Ann Allen/ Crux• May 7, 2025

One of the most senior cardinals has stressed the importance of unity and prayed that the conclave will bestow a new pontiff who reminds the world of human and spiritual values by awakening consciences.

His comments came during a special Mass on 7 May prior to the start of the conclave that will open this afternoon in Rome to elect the next pope.

During the Mass celebrated pro eligendo Romano Pontifice – “for electing the new pope” – Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, 91, Dean of the College of Cardinals, highlighted that they were standing above St. Peter’s tomb.

In that spot, and on the cusp of casting their first vote for the new pontiff, “We feel united with the entire People of God in their sense of faith, love for the pope and confident expectation,” he said.

“We are here to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit, to implore his light and strength so that the pope elected may be he whom the Church and humanity need at this difficult and complex turning
point in history,” he said.

Re described how the conclave takes place amid several global conflicts and a changing geopolitical situation, as old alliances appear to be dissolving while new ones yet to be fully understood are slowly taking shape.

After Wednesday’s Mass, the 133 cardinals who will elect the next pope will have time for lunch, rest and to finish moving into the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse before the official start of the conclave later that afternoon.

Calling the election of the pope one of “the highest human and ecclesial responsibility”, Re in his homily stressed the importance of prayer in the process and the need to set aside “every personal consideration”, and instead prioritise the good of the Church, and of humanity.

He reflected on the day’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus tells his disciples “love one another as I have loved you,” adding that, “no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

With this instruction, Jesus transformed the old teaching not to do something to others that one would not have done to oneself into “something positive” and new, he said.

“The love that Jesus reveals knows no limits and must characterise the thoughts and actions of all his disciples, who must always show authentic love in their behaviour and commit themselves to building a new civilisation, what Paul VI called the ‘civilisation of love,’” he said.

In this sense, Re said, “love is the only force capable of changing the world.”

Cardinale Giovanni Battista Re leads the special Mass prior to the start of the conclave, at St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican, 7 May 2025 (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Jesus gave an example of this love, he said, while humbling himself to wash the disciples’ feet during the Last Supper, “without discrimination” and without excluding Judas, despite knowing that Judas would betray him.

This serves as a reminder, Re said, “that the fundamental quality of pastors is love to the point of complete self-giving.”

Re said the readings were an invitation to cardinals electing the pope “to fraternal love, to mutual help and to commitment to ecclesial communion and universal human fraternity”.

Faithful attend the special mass for the election of the Roman Pontiff, prior to the start of the conclave, at St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican, 7 May 2025 (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Faithful attend the special mass for the election of the Roman Pontiff, prior to the start of the conclave, at St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican, 7 May 2025 (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

“Among the tasks of every successor of Peter is that of fostering communion: communion of all Christians with Christ; communion of the bishops with the pope; communion of the bishops among themselves,” he said.

Re insisted that this “is not a self-referential communion”, but is rather one “entirely directed towards communion among persons, peoples and cultures, with a concern that the Church should always be a home and school of communion”.

It also represents a strong call “to maintain the unity of the Church on the path traced out by Christ to the apostles,” he said, saying unity within the Church “is willed by Christ”.

Photo: Cardinals are shown on a large screen as people gather in St. Peter’s Square and watch the Mass for the Election of the New Pope before the start of the conclave, Vatican, 7 May 2025. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.)

This is a type of unity, he said, “that does not mean uniformity, but a firm and profound communion in diversity, provided that full fidelity to the Gospel is maintained”.

Each pope who is elected continues to carry forward Jesus’s mandate to Peter and is a representative of Christ on earth and is “the rock on which the Church is built”, Re said.

The election of a new pope, then, is “not a simple succession of persons”, but, rather, it is always “the apostle Peter who returns”, he said.

Addressing the cardinals who will elect the new pope, Re said they must remember that “everything is conducive to an awareness of the presence of God, in whose sight each person will one day be judged,” adding that this is why the voting takes place before Michelangelo’s famed fresco of the Final Judgement.

“Let us pray, then, that the Holy Spirit, who in the last hundred years has given us a series of truly holy and great pontiffs, will give us a new pope according to God’s heart for the good of the Church and of humanity,” he said.

Re also prayed that God would give the Church a new pope who “knows how best to awaken the consciences of all and the moral and spiritual energies in today’s society, characterised by great technological progress but which tends to forget God.”

“Today’s world expects much from the Church regarding the safeguarding of those fundamental human and spiritual values without which human coexistence will not be better nor bring good to future generations,” he said.

He closed his homily asking for the Virgin Mary’s intercession so that God would “will enlighten the minds of the Cardinal electors and help them agree on the pope that our time needs”.

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Photo: Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re enjoys conversation with faithful before the May candlelight Rosary Procession around St Peter’s Square on May 03, 2025 in Vatican City, Vatican. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)