What contributed to Benedict XVI's rise?
From Jim Bittermann
CNN
ROME, Italy (CNN) -- As Pope Benedict XVI starts his papacy, details and analyses are emerging about how the actions of his predecessor and the new pontiff helped position him as the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
Before Pope John Paul II's funeral, Vatican watchers, Catholics and scores of others discussed the possibility of the conservative Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's ascension and what that could mean for the church.
But cardinals who participated in the conclave this week said several circumstances helped them look beyond Ratzinger's reputation as a hard-line theological enforcer.
Many cardinals said Ratzinger's homily at John Paul's funeral struck just the right tone, and made them begin to warm to Ratzinger. John Paul placed Ratzinger in that position by approving him as the dean of the College of Cardinals. The dean traditionally delivers a pope's eulogy.
Ratzinger's deportment while holding that position also created a favorable opinion, cardinals said. Several said he impressed them by the way he conducted the daily meetings cardinals attend to discuss church issues. He called on each cardinal by name, they said. He used his mastery of seven languages to give them answers in their own tongue. And Ratzinger regularly suggested pastoral methods, not theological legalities, to resolve problems.
Ratzinger "conducted those meetings in a very orderly manner and a manner which pleased everyone," Cardinal Keith O'Brien of Scotland said.
Risky sermon
Just before the conclave began, Ratzinger gave a sermon that some took as an indication that he wasn't interested in becoming pope. Hard-hitting is the way most described his strict defense of orthodoxy.
"To have a clear faith according to the church's creed is today often labeled fundamentalism, while relativism, letting ourselves be carried away by any wind of doctrine, appears as the only appropriate attitude for today's times," he said. "A dictatorship of relativism is established that recognizes nothing definite and leaves only one's own ego and one's own desires as the final measure. ... An adult faith does not follow the waves of fashion and the latest novelty."
Ratzinger's message could have backfired, but didn't -- perhaps because John Paul appointed all but three of the 115 cardinals who participated in the conclave, and such a sermon could have been in step with their beliefs.
After the first vote in the conclave, Ratzinger was out front, among the dozen or so names that emerged.
The next morning cardinals prayed for guidance from the Holy Spirit, a cardinal said, and the number of front-runners dwindled to a handful.
Cardinal William Keeler, archbishop of Baltimore, Maryland, said, "One cardinal told me while he was listening to the votes being counted, he said three rosaries. And I said two, and the third said, 'Well I prayed mine with greater piety, and it was just one.' "
The third vote showed Ratzinger had a clear majority.
Majority wins
John Paul changed conclave rules so that after 33 ballots, a cardinal can become pope with a simple majority instead of a two-thirds vote. The cardinals weren't close to reaching that ballot limit, but some cardinals said drawing out the process would eventually have led to the same result. So the fourth ballot ended it.
"When [Ratzinger] reached 77, everybody applauded because we all knew then that he has the two-thirds vote," said Roger Mahoney, archbishop of Los Angeles, California.
Soon thereafter, Ratzinger stepped onto the basilica balcony as Benedict XVI, and the crowd's response pleased the cardinals, several of them said.
Benedict's first acts as pope -- dining that night with cardinals who elected him and coming back the next morning to share breakfast with them before Mass -- impressed the cardinals, they said.
