In his book of interviews, “El Sucessor”, Pope Francis detailed how it was used to undermine Pope Benedict XVI’s candidacy at the 2005 Conclave – which was to nominate a successor to John Paul II. That, because Bentoalso known as Joseph Ratzinger, needed two-thirds of the votes in the Sistine Chapel to be elected and Francisco’s candidacy could prevent his election.
In this ocasion, Pope Francis He was one of the candidates for the highest position in the Catholic Church and ended up receiving 40 of the 115 votes – which would prevent Bento from being elected, but would not be enough to elect the Argentine. “The maneuver consisted of presenting my name, blocking Ratzinger’s election and then negotiating a third, different candidate. They told me later that they didn’t want a ‘foreign’ pope. It was a complete maneuver. The idea was to block the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. They were using me, but behind me they were already thinking about proposing another cardinal”, explained the pontiff.
Pope Francis states that he became aware of the manipulation on April 19, 2005, one day after the start of the Conclave. “When I realized, in the afternoon, I said to a Latin American cardinal, the Colombian Darío Castrillón: `Don’t joke with my candidacy, because right now I’m going to say that I won’t accept (…). And that’s when Bento was elected.”
