(ANS – Rome) – Salesian Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, has been in Rome now for some days, taking part in the general congregation of Cardinals, and will then take part in the Conclave to elect the successor to Benedict XVI. Last Saturday, 2 March, he was interviewed by Enzo Romeo, Foreign reporter for Tg2, TV broadcaster for the RAI 2 network. What follows is an excerpt from this interview.

Your Eminence, will the presence of a Pope emeritus for the first time in the Church weigh upon the Conclave?
It is certainly a unique event in history, however I think the most relevant point for us to realise is that Benedict XVI is praying for us.

Do cardinals like yourself coming from afar need to know something more about what happened in the Church last year, for example the Vatileaks case?
I think this would be necessary, because we are a College, and if we are brothers we need to know something which, because of distance and our particular work, we do not have sufficient information about.

According to you, is this the right moment for a Pope from outside Europe?
It doesn't really matter so much whether he is European or not; it depends more on the huge challenges that the new Pope today has to face up to. More than the question of nationality, we need to think who is the most appropriate person for responding to these challenges.

You received some votes in the previous Conclave. How did you feel when your name echoed around the Sistine chapel: satisfied, afraid, confused?
Fearful, for sure, because no human being would want to carry the burden the Pope has to carry. But at the same time, when the Lord calls, He gives the grace to handle that call.

You are a musician and when the Pope met with the cardinals for the last time he told the College of Cardinals that they need to be like an orchestra where divisions fuse into a single harmony? Do you share this idea?
I agree fully, otherwise the Church would not be a symphony but a cacophony.

Published 04/03/2013