Election of a pope begins.

Byline: Jeff Wright The Register-Guard

With apologies to the Las Vegas tourism industry: What happens in the Sistine Chapel, stays in the Sistine Chapel.

When the world's Catholic cardinals gather today to begin the process of electing a new pope, they will be guided by centuries-old regulations - updated by Pope John Paul II in 1996 - that put the highest possible premium on secrecy.

Few, it seems, are immune to the international speculation about who will be named the Catholic Church's 266th pope, and why, and when. Locally, the intrigue has captured the imagination of the Rev. Tom Yurchak and other local priests - not that they necessarily have any inside track when it comes to information.

"What happens in there, happens in there," said Yurchak, parish priest at St. Jude Catholic Church in south Eugene and a noted church historian. "They've got to come out and provide a united front."

Church rules on the selection of a pope - a 92-paragraph primer titled "The Apostolic Constitution on the Vacancy of the Apostolic See and the Election of the Roman Pontiff" - leaves very little unaddressed. The rules specify, for example, that all deliberations in the selection process are to be held in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel - after a sweep is first made to guard against the planting of unauthorized listening devices.

Cardinals are prohibited from receiving any reading material, and Vatican employees who might chance upon a cardinal are prohibited from engaging him in conversation for any reason. The potential penalty is latae sentantiae - automatic, on-the-spot excommunication.

Has such drastic action ever been taken? "Most of the time we don't learn about it for years later, but apparently it has happened," said Yurchak, who studied theology at the University of Innsbruck in Austria and who also has a degree in canonical law from St. Paul University in Ottawa, Canada. "There have been a few leaks."

Aside from protecting the integrity of the process, the obsession with secrecy can also be viewed as an act of kindness - for disappointed cardinals who may have received a substantial number of votes but not enough to win, Yurchak said.

The elaborate voting process requires a two-thirds majority to select a pope. But if no one garners enough votes after several rounds of balloting - seven ballots per round followed by a time of prayer and reflection - the cardinals can opt to move to a simple majority vote, or to stage a runoff between the top two contenders.

The prayer breaks are typically observed in silence, "to allow for the working of the Holy Spirit," Yurchak said. The politicking doesn't begin unless a stalemate occurs. "Then they just open it up and everybody can talk," said Yurchak. "Sometimes the Holy Spirit is not as vocal as at other times."

Yurchak believes that Pope John Paul II tweaked the rules in part to guard against the possibility of deadlock. Yurchak predicts a short conclave, one lasting no more than two or three days.

Some prognosticators believe that the 115 cardinals - all but three named to their posts by Pope John Paul II - will choose an older "caretaker" pope to avoid consecutive lengthy papacies. Even greater speculation has centered on whether a new pope will come from Latin America or Africa, the parts of the world where Catholicism is growing fastest.

Even among U.S. Catholics, a majority - 54.8 percent - say they would like to see a pope from Latin America, according to a new survey released last week by Zogby International and Le Moyne College in New York. That's higher than those who say they'd like to see a pope selected from North America (43 percent), Western Europe (37.1 percent) or, specifically, Italy (25.7 percent). The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The sentiment among U.S. Catholics in favor of a Latin American pope doesn't surprise Yurchak.

"I think American Catholics realize that, as the last superpower, if we dominate the world politically and in many ways economically, should we also dominate spiritually?" he said. "I think there's an understanding of our spiritual weaknesses."

The Rev. David Orique, a Dominican priest at the St. Thomas More Newman Center near the University of Oregon campus, offers a second explanation: More and more U.S. Catholics are Hispanic - including 40 percent within the Archdiocese of Portland, which covers Western Oregon.

Orique said he hopes the cardinals will choose a pope from Latin America, home to approximately half the world's Catholics "and the most dynamic part of the church."

One of Orique's colleagues at the Newman Center, the Rev. Tom McGreevy, said he's hopeful the next pope will be someone ready to embrace the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s - regardless of the new pope's geographic origin.

"There's no automatic guarantee that a person from the Third World or Latin America or Africa will be in favor of the Second Vatican Council," said McGreevy, who is 70 years old and has ministered for 40 years. "Let's see who the individual man is instead of where he comes from."

The Second Vatican Council led to significant changes in church liturgy and doctrine, including allowing priests to face the congregation and speak in English rather than Latin during Mass. The overriding effect, says McGreevy, was to place greater focus on the needs of those in the pew rather than the church hierarchy.

Yurchak, however, predicts that the conclave in Rome will select a conservative pope, and quite probably an Italian.

"People who are named cardinals are people who are extremely loyal to the church," he said. "The whole system is set up to be very conservative. You never anticipate a renegade."

The Zogby poll of U.S. Catholics shows that most hope the next pope will follow John Paul's lead in opposing abortion, and critiquing the excesses of consumerism and the inequities of global capitalism. But U.S. Catholics are much more divided on whether the next pope should oppose birth control, or insist on an all-male, celibate priesthood.

The chances of papal change around those issues are slim, Yurchak said. While U.S. Catholics may be ambivalent about those traditional views, most U.S. bishops are not.

McGreevy, however, said church leaders may need to take into account the shortage of priests worldwide. John Paul II came from Poland, a heavily Catholic country, but other cardinals hail from parts of the world where celibacy and other church rules have contributed to a priest shortage.

"It's probably not going to take just one pope but maybe two or three popes to start implementing some of these changes," McGreevy said. "The church is pretty slow in making radical changes."

Orique, who has traveled in 28 countries in Latin America and elsewhere, said many Catholics around the world don't have the "luxury" to be preoccupied by such issues.

"They're not thinking about who can be ordained or whether clergy can get married," he said. "They're wondering where their next meal will come from and whether their country will continue to face armed conflict.

"They're looking for someone who's going to advocate for the poor, for peace, for democracy, for jobs."

U.S. CATHOLICS' VIEWS ON NEXT POPE

80 percent say he should criticize inequalities of global capitalism

79 percent say he should oppose abortion

48 percent say he should uphold mandatory celibacy for priests

47 percent say he should uphold all-male priesthood

46 percent say he should oppose birth control

- Zogby International/Le Moyne College