'God's Rottweiler' divides cardinals

OPPOSITION has now emerged to a German seen as a frontrunner to be the next pope, leaving Roman Catholic cardinals divided as they prepared for a conclave to elect the successor to Pope John Paul II.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - nicknamed 'God's Rottweiler' during his long tenure as the guardian of Catholic doctrine - is a polarising influence on the pre-conclave negotiations, according to Italian media reports.

Opposition to the former head of the powerful Vatican congregation for the doctrine of the faith is centring around the scholarly Carlo Maria Martini, a former archbishop of Milan.

Both men are 78 and reportedly reluctant to assume the frontrunner mantle, but experienced Vatican watchers agree they can garner between 40 and 50 votes each, short of the 77 needed for the requisite two-thirds majority.

Many of the 115 cardinals who will go into the secret conclave Monday are undecided, however.

Any deadlock could see an unknown compromise candidate emerge, as happened when Krakow archbishop Karol Wojtyla came to the fore in the later ballots of the October 1978 conclave, which stretched to three days, to become John Paul II.

Compromise candidates being mentioned with increasing frequency in Rome are Portugal's Jose da Cruz Policarpo, 69, and the Austrian Christoph Schonborn, a relative youngster at 60.

Both the Lisbon patriarch and Vienna archbishop are seen as bridge-builders with the Russian Orthodox Church, with which the Vatican's relations have long been cool.

To help them make what the Vatican called "an enlightened choice", the prelates meeting for their 10th congregation yesterday heard a meditation from a Franciscan priest, Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher to the papal household.

"At the end of the meditation, the cardinals dedicated a period of time to silence and prayer," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro -Valls said.

He said the cardinals spent the morning involved in "an exchange of ideas on the situation of the Church and the world", Vatican-speak for often intense debate on problems facing the Church and the ideal man to lead it.

In rules for a conclave laid down in 1996, John Paul II stipulated there should be "two well-prepared meditations on the problems facing the Church at the time and on the need for careful discernment in choosing the new pope."

The cardinals will hear the second preacher, 85-year-old Czech Cardinal Tomas Spidlik, at the beginning of the conclave. Mr Navarro-Valls also said cardinals were still unclear on rules governing the conclave, needing "several clarifications on (their) interpretation."

He added that the cardinals had drawn lots for the rooms they will occupy in the Santa Marta residence, where they are to be housed for the duration of the conclave. If the conclave can be seen as the home straight, then these last few days of pre-conclave congregations - involving 140 cardinals as of Thursday - are the final bend.

Breathing down the necks of the two frontrunners are a pack of possibles. Bookmaker Paddy Power make French cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, 78, joint favourite with Martini at 4-1, with Ratzinger, Brazil's Claudio Hummes and Francis Arinze of Nigeria close behind. Meanwhile, activists appealed for the next pope to promote the inclusion of women in the Church, putting an end to what they said was "the atmosphere of silence and threat in Church institutions."

"Once again, women have been reduced to silence and invisibility," Adriana Valerio said at a meeting in Rome of We Are Church, a grassroots group created here in 1996.