Bible on the election of the Supreme Pontiff

March 12, 2013: The conclave to elect the successor of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Catholic Church’s 266th Pontiff got underway in the Vatican on Tuesday, 12 March. Over 5600 accredited journalists and hundreds of Television channels of the world’s media have their eyes fixed now on the famous chimney on the Sistine Chapel to know the next spiritual leader of the Catholic world of some 1.2 billion people.

It is also an opportune time to look at the biblical backing of such a tradition. It starts from the Synod of Jerusalem reported in the Acts of the Apostles chapter 15. It deals with how God visited the people and how he promised to build up the ruins of King David. It also shows how God establishes his kingdom. We read in the Act of the Apostles: 15, 14-17: James spoke up and said, "Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, as it is written, `After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up, that the rest of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who has made these things known from of old.”

The Gospel of Luke tells us: "I am among you as one who serves" (Lk 22.24-27): This helps us to understand the biblical meaning of the election of a Pope by the College of Cardinals. The Church cannot be in Christ without Peter, his rock and head, but Peter is never a solitary leader at the top of a pyramid, he is the "first" and the head of the Eleven and "others who are with them" (Luke 24:33), he is the center of a "communion" of men, organically oriented only to follow the one "Arch-Shepherd" (1 Peter 5:4), the shepherd of all shepherds of God's people of this arch-pastor, he is "the visible sacrament" in every moment of history, and therefore temporary. For this, Peter is always defined with "others" and the other around Peter.