Credit: McKenna Snow
CV NEWS FEED // Director of the Holy See Press Office Matteo Bruni confirmed April 29 that two cardinals of the 135 registered as electors will not be attending the conclave.
Bruni said that they will not be attending due to health reasons and did not disclose their names out of respect for their privacy.
CatholicVote reported yesterday that one registered elector who is not attending due to health reasons is Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, 79, archbishop emeritus of Valencia, Spain.
Cardinal Vinko Puljić, archbishop emeritus of Vrhbosna, Sarajevo, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also initially was not going to attend, but reports last Friday indicated that his diocese had announced he was now going to attend because his doctor cleared him to go. It is unknown whether Cardinal Puljić or another cardinal is the second cardinal to not be in attendance at the conclave to vote on the next pope.
This brings the total number of registered cardinals participating in the conclave to 133. In order for a new pope to be elected, there must be a two-thirds majority in agreement.
CatholicVote also reported that Cardinal Angelo Becciu, 76, who is listed as a non-elector by the Vatican, had previously claimed to have the right to vote in the conclave. The claim was contentious due to his being stripped of “the rights associated with the Cardinalate” by Pope Francis, as Reuters reported. He was convicted by a Vatican court in 2023 of embezzlement and fraud. He has appealed the conviction, saying he is innocent.
Today, the matter of whether he would be voting in the conclave was publicly settled in a Vatican News-published statement by Cardinal Becciu himself, in which he confirmed he would not attend.
“Having at heart the good of the Church, which I have served and will continue to serve with faithfulness and love, and in order to contribute to the communion and serenity of the conclave, I have decided to obey — as I have always done — the will of Pope Francis not to enter the conclave, while remaining convinced of my innocence,” he said.
The conclave begins May 7.