5 Indians are among the 115 cardinals electing the next pope,which effectively makes them contenders too. As they vote in the Vatican,a look at their work in India and abroad Baselios Cleemis,53 Keralas multi-tasker Among the youngest of the voting cardinals is Baselios Cleemis of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Born in 1959 in Pathanamthitta,he has had a long career as a priest and bishop in India,studied in Kerala,Pune and Rome,and served in the US,before being made cardinal. And he is very representative of the Kerala church establishment. His doctorate from St Thomas Pontifical University in Rome is on ecumenism,which refers to the forging of unity among various Christian denominations and schools. When he was made a cardinal by the pope last November,his entourage to the Vatican was headed by Rajya Sabha deputy chairman P J Kurien of the Congress and included the imam of Palayam Mosque,two Hindu priests from Thiruvananthapuram,and the citys communist mayor. As he received a gold ring and biretta from the pope,he was watched by representatives of several other influential Christian sects of Kerala he had taken along,including from the Church of South India,the Marthoma Church,the Syrian Orthodox Church and Orthodox Jacobites. Cleemis,a keen basketball player and stage actor,has also focused on widening the churchs activities. Not hesitant to admit that the church needs to do more to actually achieve what it says it has done in India,he has helped build a home for the destitute and a health centre,and is currently on a house project so that everyone associated with the church has a roof over his or her head. He has never shied away from making his voice heard. On reservation for Dalit Christians and tribal Christians,he joined communists in front of the Kerala secretariat to protest, says Bishop Jacob Barnabas,a classmate from the Pune seminary and in Rome. George Alancherry,67 Scholar from Kerala Cardinal George Alancherry,67,is the first democratically elected Major Archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Episcopal Church,Kochi. His predecessors in this eastern Catholic church,one of 22 independent churches under the Vatican,had been appointed by the pope. Elected in 2011,Alancherry is the fourth head of his church,which has 40 lakh followers,all Keralites and spread across the world. Two of his three predecessors,cardinals Joseph Parekkattil and Varkey Vithayathil,had participated in conclaves to elect the pope. Last year,soon after his investiture as cardinal in Rome,Alancherry had kicked up a storm with reported comments about the killing of fishermen by Italian marines. Speaking to a news agency,he had reportedly called for an amicable settlement of the issue. Alancherry,who hails from Changanassery in Kottayam,has a Ph D in biblical theology from Sorbonne University in Paris. He was ordained a priest in 1972 and made a bishop in 1997 for the then newly formed Thuckaly diocese in Tamil Nadus Nagercoil district. For most of his four decades in the priestly profession,Alanchery has been a faculty member of theology in seminaries and an administrator in his diocese. His elevation as head of the Syro-Malabar church was unexpected as several senior bishops and archbishops had appeared frontrunners following the death of the incumbent,Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil. Alancherry was elected major archbishop in the second round. Oswald Gracias,68 Mumbais moderate Born in 1944 in Mumbai and archbishop there since 2006,he is fondly referred to as Cardinal Ossie. He was Archbishop of Agra from 2000. In 2007,he was elevated to cardinal. He has earned the reputation of a moderate. While opposing same-sex marriages,he has been quoted saying that homosexuals must not be rejected,and that he is not against gay priests as long as they maintain the vow of celibacy. He has embraced the teaching of yoga in Catholic schools and approves of use of technology to reach out to followers. His vision is that the church and the people should have a more collaborative relationship with more dialogue, says Father Barthol Barretto,parish priest of Immaculate Conception Church. He holds a doctorate in canon law and a diploma in jurisprudence from the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome and has served as judicial vicar and chancellor of the Archdiocese of Bombay. He is a visiting professor to the seminaries of Mumbai,Pune,and Bangalore,and the serving president of the Canon Law Society of India. In 2011,he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in Rome for a five-year renewable term. He is a friendly man. and immensely popular,which could explain why hes elected president of so many organisations, says Father Anthony Charangat,spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Bombay. His diplomacy is top-notch and it shows in his good relations with leaders such as Arun Jaitley and L K Advani. In fact he has been recognised by the Vatican as a possible future secretary of state,the second highest post, Charangat says. Gracias is known to have voiced his opinion on political and social events. After the Delhi gangrape,special prayer services were held across churches in Mumbai and awareness programmes organised. Ivan Dias,76 Goa & Mumbai,conservative Born in Bandra in 1936,his roots in Goa,Dias was made cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001 during his tenure as head of the Bombay diocese. In 2006,he was posted in Rome as a prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples. He retired at age 75 in 2011,but is eligible to vote for a pope until age 80. Cardinal Dias has been a diplomat for the Vatican and gone on missions to Scandinavia,the Balkans,Africa,and East Asia. In 1991,after the fall of the Soviet Union,he was put in charge of rebuilding the church and faith in Albania,where he befriended Mother Teresa. When Cardinal Dias started out there were only five catholics in Albania; by the time he left there were 6,000 followers. At the age of 22,he was the youngest priest to be ordained and this required special permissions, says Father Anthony Charangat,editor of Examiner,mouthpiece of the Bombay Diocese. Cardinal Dias is known to have been a conservative Archbishop of Bombay. He courted controversy when he condemned Hindu fundamentalists attacking Christians,described homosexuality and abortion as unnatural and remained wary of technology. There were people who agreed with the cardinal and those who opposed him but it was well-known that he was orthodox and devoted to the churchs teachings, says Father Barthol Barretto,who was his secretary from 2003 to 2005. Telesphore Placidus Toppo,73 Jharkhand veteran Telesphore Placidus Toppo,Archbishop of Ranchi diocese for over 26 years,will be papal elector for a second time. Cardinal Toppo,an Oraon tribal,was born in 1939 in the Chainpur block of Gumla district,known these days for the presence of left-wing extremist groups. He is the eighth of 10 siblings. His rise in the church hierarchy was quick,having been nominated as the second Bishop of Dumka diocese in 1978,less than a decade after his 1969 priestly ordination. His eventual predecessor,the then Archbishop of Ranchi Pius Kerketta,ordained Toppo on October 7,1978. Toppo was transferred to Ranchi as the Archbishop Coadjutor of Ranchi in 1984 and was installed as the Archbishop in August the next year. He was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II on October 21,2003. He is a two-time president of both the Catholic Bishops Conference of India and Conference of Catholic Bishops of India,the latter the fourth-largest in the world. The state government conferred the Jharkhand Ratna award on him in 2002. In an interview to the website Vatican Insider during his current visit to Rome,Cardinal Toppo ruled out the possibility of an Indian pope this time,pointing out that the church in India was too fragmented. He argued that not individuals but their local churches produce popes: The Church in India. is scattered with a tiny minority of Catholics 18 million,and we are divided in three communities and rites,so it is not possible for such a church to produce a pope. The pope should somehow represent the whole church. HOW IT WORKS 115 Number of cardinals electing a pope. There are no formal nominees,and technically,each cardinal enters the conclave as a possible pope. 2/3The next pope must garner two-thirds of the votes,or 77 of 115 in this case. If no one gets that majority in the first round,voting enters the next. 4Rounds of voting each day two every morning,two in the evening. The first ballot effectively identifies the cardinals to whom votes can flow in succeeding rounds. Cardinals write a name under the Latin words Eligo in Summum Pontificem (I elect as Supreme Pontiff) and place the ballot in an urn. First look Two cardinals read the ballot and record it. A third reads it out loud. Then the ballots are threaded together through the word Eligo. The counting Three cardinals check the ballots. If a candidate has received a two-thirds majority,then a new pope has been elected. Black & white The cardinals burn the ballots,usually combining papers from two rounds of voting. The smoke is white if a pope has been elected,and black if not. 2005 How the conclave that elected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 2005 as Benedict XVI progressed,as reported by an Italian state television journalist,Lucio Brunelli,in Limes that year,but never officially verified: Round 1 Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Buenos Aires) got 10 votes,followed by Carlo Maria Martini (Milan) with 9,according to the report Round 2 Cardinal Ratzingers count rose to 65,Cardinal Bergoglios to 35. Cardinal Martinis votes apparently went to Cardinal Bergoglio. Round 3 Cardinal Ratzinger,72; Cardinal Bergoglio,40. Cardinal Bergoglio needed only four votes to exceed one-third of the total,enough to block a Ratzinger papacy. Round 4 At least 12 more votes went to Cardinal Ratzinger,giving him 84 and the papacy. Source: NYT Reporting by Seema Chishti,Shaju Philip,Alison Saldanha & Deepu Sebastian Edmond
