On a day when the cardinals again failed to name a date for the forthcoming conclave to elect a new pope, a US abuse victims’ lobby named Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin as one of three “most promising candidates” to succeed Benedict XVI.
In a provocative gesture given that Dr Martin is not a cardinal, clerical sex abuse victims’ lobby Snap said the archbishop, along with the archbishops of Manila and Vienna, cardinals Luis Antonio Tagle and Christoph Schönborn, represented the “least worst” choices.
Yesterday’s statement followed one on Wednesday when the lobby named a “Dirty Dozen” of cardinals whom they felt should not become pope, largely because of their alleged mishandling of clerical sex abuse cases. The list includes Canadian Marc Ouellet, Italian Angelo Scola, Ghanaian Peter Turkson and US cardinals Tim Dolan and Sean O’Malley.
All 115 elector cardinals have now arrived in Rome, but yesterday there was still no date for the conclave.
