The fourth general congregation got underway Wednesday morning with 153 Cardinals present. Four more cardinals arrived in Rome overnight, three of them cardinal electors, cardinal Lehman from Germany, the Egyptian cardinal Naguib, and from Hong Kong cardinal Tong Hon. This brings the number of cardinal electors present in Rome to 113, with two cardinals still to arrive, cardinal Nycz from Warsaw (due to arrive later today) and Vietnamese cardinal Pham (due to arrive Thursday).
In the daily press briefing Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi, who attends the Congregation sessions, revealed that birthday greetings were also exchanged for cardinals Kasper on his 80th birthday Tuesday and Coccopalmiero who is 75 Wednesday .
On Wednesday there were 18 interventions from different cardinals representing the Church in different parts of the world, for a total of 51 thus far. Due to the large number of people wishing to speak a time frame of 5 minutes was established for each intervention.
The order of interventions, noted Fr. Lombardi, is not selected according to geographical origins or precedence. The main themes discussed were: the Church in the world, needs of New Evangelization, the Holy See, the different dicasteries of the Roman Curia; relations with local churches and bishops, what’s beginning to emerge, the Vatican spokesman noted “is the profile for the future Pope”.
Fr. Lombardi noted the variety of the interventions, from organizational questions pertaining to the Holy See to local issues of pastoral action. He also added that the cardinals have decided to meet both morning and afternoon, holding two congregation sessions and with a smile, he reiterated that no date has yet been set for Conclave.