To the minute | New Pope: Last hour of the Conclave and the Cardinals candidates for Pontiff after the death of Francisco

The seventh general congregation of Cardinals, the preparative meetings of the Conclave, told this morning with the participation of 181 cardinals, of which 124 are voters, and the delicate economic and financial situation of the Holy See was approached, one of the challenges for the new Pope. The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, explained that this morning’s debate focused on the “problems” and “challenges” of Vatican finances, with interventions by Cardinals Reinhard Marx, as coordinator of the Council for the Economy; Kevin Joseph Farrell, responsible for the Investment Committee; and Christoph Schoenborn, president of the IOR Supervision Commission (the Vatican Bank). The President Emeritus of the Government of the city of the Vatican, Fernando Vergez Alzaga, and Konrad Krajewski, responsible for the Dicasteria for Charity, also took the floor. In the second part of the morning, there were 14 interventions on issues such as “the ecclesiology of the people of God” and “the polarization in the church and division of society was cited as wound,” Bruni said. Among Francisco’s reforms is that of Vatican’s finances, with a transparency work especially in the IOR (the Vatican Bank), although the next pontiff will have to address an authentic review of the spending since donations to the Church have dropped considerably.