Benedict XVI returns to Vatican for first time

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Pope visits St. Peter's tomb under Vatican

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Monday took an emotional, close-up look at the tomb of Peter, the church's first pontiff, buried beneath St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican said.

By doing so, Francis became the first pontiff to visit the necropolis, where pagans and early Christians were buried, since extensive archaeological excavations were conducted at the ancient site decades ago, the Vatican said.

The 45-minute "visit of devotion to the tomb of St. Peter" was private, the Vatican said, but it later released a video of it.

The basilica was built over the location where early Christians would gather in secret, at a time of persecution in ancient Rome, to pray at an unmarked tomb believed to be that of Peter, the apostle Jesus chose to lead his church.

The Vatican first said Francis would pray at Peter's tomb, but later said he prayed instead in the basilica.

The new pope "paused in silent prayer, in profound and emotional meditation" in the Clementine Chapel in the vast basilica that is "the closest place (in the basilica) to the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles," it said.

During a tour of the necropolis conducted by its director and an Italian cardinal, the pope "climbed up a bit, got closer to the place where the tomb of St. Peter lies, exactly under the central altar and the dome of the basilica," the Vatican said.

Francis walked down the entire main street of the ancient city of the dead, the statement said. The streets of the necropolis are similar to those of ancient Rome, only they are flanked by tombs instead of shops and apartments.

The Vatican said Francis walked to the necropolis entrance from the hotel on the Vatican grounds where he lives, took the tour and later — after paying homage at the tombs of several popes in another underground level known as the grottoes, including Pius XII, Paul VI and John Paul I — strolled back to his residence.

The underground excursion was a sharp departure from how popes in past years often spent the day after Easter, known in Italy as "little Easter." Those pontiffs would head to Castel Gandolfo, the Vatican palace in the Alban Hills, a short drive from Rome.

But that oasis of sprawling gardens and strolling paths in the quaint hill town is occupied by the predecessor of Francis, Benedict XVI, who spent the last hours of his papacy there before becoming the first pope in 600 years to retire. Benedict is staying in Castel Gandolfo until a monastery at the Vatican in Rome can be readied for him.

Many Italians spend "little Easter" by having a picnic lunch in the countryside or in city parks, and Francis told Romans and tourists who gathered in St. Peter's Square at noon Monday to see him to "have a good lunch." Francis said he was praying that Easter would inspire the faithful so that "hatred gives way to love, lies to truth," and that it would especially comfort those in "most need of trust and hope."

He spoke to them from the studio window of the apartment in the Apostolic Palace overlooking the square. Benedict and popes before him lived there, but so far Francis, who stresses simplicity, has declined to move into the quarters.

Instead, he has continued to stay at the Vatican hotel, where, as Buenos Aires archbishop, he stayed with fellow cardinals to elect Benedict's successor. They chose him, Jorge Bergoglio, the first pontiff from South America.

St. Peter's mission was to continue to preach the message of Jesus and reach more souls. Francis, as a Jesuit, is steeped in the evangelizing mission of the church, and the necropolis tour brings him back to the origins of the church in its simplest years as a community of Christians professing their faith in defiance of the crackdown by Roman emperors.

Peter himself was among the Christian martyrs during Nero's reign. He is believed to have been crucified, head down, on the Vatican hill.

Constantine, the first Christian emperor, had an early basilica built on the slopes of the Vatican Hill, burying the pagan and Christian cemetery — necropolis means 'city of the dead' — that surrounded Peter's burial site.

The current basilica, named after St. Peter, was constructed over the earlier basilica that was deemed unsafe and demolished in the late 15th century.

The Baroque master architect Bernini designed the bronze canopy over the central altar over the spot of Peter's burial site. The current basilica was planned as an awe-inspiring monument that would project the image of a powerful church.

Under popes of the last century, extensive excavations were carried out of the sprawling necropolis. In 1965, archaeologists said they had found the bones of Peter in an area near an ancient Greek inscription saying "Peter is here."

Part of a nearby necropolis came to light in 2003 during construction of a parking lot.

A few years ago, the Vatican unveiled the largest and most luxurious of the pagan tombs under St. Peter's Basilica, that of a family of former slaves.

Guided tours of the necropolis, upon appointment, have been one of the most sought-after attractions for tourists to the Vatican.

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New pope opens Holy Week at Vatican on Palm Sunday

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis celebrated his first Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square, encouraging people to be humble and young at heart and promising to go to a youth jamboree in Brazil in July, while the faithful enthusiastically waved olive branches and braided palm fronds.

The square overflowed with a crowd estimated by the Vatican at 250,000 people. Pilgrims, tourists and Romans jostled each other in an eager effort glimpse Francis as they joined the new pope at the start of solemn Holy Week ceremonies, which lead up to Easter, Christianity's most important day.

Keeping with his spontaneous style, the first pope from Latin America broke away several times from the text of his prepared homily to encourage the faithful to lead simple lives and resist the temptation to be sad when life's obstacles inevitably come their way.

"Don't let yourselves be robbed of hope! Don't let yourselves be robbed of hope!" Francis told the crowd, in an apparent reference to the economic difficulties people are grappling with as they try to find adequate work amid a poor job market in much of the world.

At the end of the two-hour Mass, Francis took off his red vestments, and wearing his plain white cassock and skull cap, climbed into an open-topped popemobile to circle through the excited crowd. He leaned out to shake hands, kissed and patted the heads of infants passed to him by bodyguards, and often gave children the thumbs-up sign.

His security detail seemed to be reluctantly dealing with this get-close-to-the-people pontiff, scrambling around the vehicle to pick up this child or that one. At one point, the chief bodyguard, Domenico Giani, was sent back to the mother of a child he had greeted to convey a message from the pontiff, and the ever-tense Giani broke into a smile after his mission was accomplished.

Francis even climbed down from the vehicle, kissed a woman in the crowd and chatted briefly with her, and another man in the crowd leaned over a barrier to squeeze the pontiff on a shoulder — an unheard of familiarity in the previous pontificate of the reserved Benedict XVI.

In keeping with his stress on giving examples of humility, Francis kissed the hand of an elderly woman who had outstretched an arm to him.

"There is no doubt that there will be a new spring for the church, a renewal" with this pope, said Sister Emma, an Argentine nun in the crowd.

Palm Sunday recalls Jesus' entry into Jerusalem but its Gospel also recounts how he was betrayed by one of his apostles and ultimately sentenced to death on a cross.

Francis presided over the Mass at an altar sheltered by a white canopy on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica.

Recalling the triumphant welcome into Jerusalem, Francis said Jesus "awakened so many hopes in the heart, above all among humble, simple, poor, forgotten people, those who don't matter in the eyes of the world."

Cardinals, many of them among the electors who chose him to be the Roman Catholic church's first Latin American pope, sat on chairs during the ceremony held under hazy skies on a breezy day. He quoted from Benedict when he told the cardinals that while they are "princes" of the church, their leader is the crucified Christ, a further admonition against attachment to temporal power.

The pope ticked off a litany of evils afflicting the world, including wars, "economic conflicts that hit the weakest" as well as corruption. In the final stretch of Benedict's papacy, the Vatican was embarrassed by a leak of documents from the papal apartment, indicating corruption, ambition and rivalries among upper ranks of the Holy See's management.

Francis told an off-the-cuff story from his childhood in Argentina. "My grandmother used to tell us children, 'burial shrouds don't have' pockets," the pope said, in a variation of "you can't take it with you."

Since his election on March 13, Francis has put the downtrodden and poor at the center of his mission as pope, keeping with the priorities of his Jesuit tradition.

In his homily, Francis said Christian joy "isn't born from possessing a lot of things but from having met" Jesus. That same joy should keep people young, he said.

"Even at 70, 80, the heart doesn't age" if one is inspired by Christian joy, said the 76-year-old pontiff.

The pontiff said he was joyfully looking forward to welcoming young people to Rio de Janiero for the Catholic Church's World Youth Day. So far, that is the first foreign trip on the calendar of Francis' new papacy. "I'm coming in July," Francis said in remarks after Mass from the esplanade of the basilica.

During Mass, at the point when the Gospel recounts the moment of Jesus' death, many faithful knelt on hard cobblestones paving the square, and Francis knelt on a wooden kneeler.

A few young olive trees were inserted in dirt placed around the central obelisk in the square.

Holy Week will see at least one break from tradition with this new papacy. Instead of washing priests' feet in a basilica in a symbolic gesture of humility on Holy Thursday, Francis will wash the feet of young inmates at a juvenile detention center in Rome. Other appointments in public will include the Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum on Good Friday night. Next Sunday, Francis will celebrate Easter Mass in the square.

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Vatican: anti-clerical campaign against pope

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican is lashing out at "defamatory" and "anti-clerical left-wing" forces seeking to discredit Pope Francis over his actions during Argentina's 1976-1983 military junta.

The Vatican says no credible accusation had ever stuck against the new pope.

While the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio, like most other Argentines, failed to openly confront the murderous dictatorship, human rights activists differ on how much responsibility he personally deserves.

The Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi noted Friday that a Jesuit who was kidnapped during the dictatorship in a case that involved Bergoglio had issued a statement saying the two had reconciled.

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Vatican criticizes campaign against pope

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The honeymoon that Pope Francis has enjoyed since his remarkable election hit a bump Friday, with the Vatican lashing out at what it called a defamatory and "anti-clerical left-wing" media campaign questioning his actions during Argentina's murderous military dictatorship.

On Day 2 of the Francis pontificate, the Vatican denounced news reports in Argentina and beyond resurrecting allegations that the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio failed to openly confront the junta responsible for kidnapping and killing thousands of people in a "dirty war" to eliminate leftist opponents.

Bergoglio, like most Argentines, didn't publicly confront the dictators who ruled from 1976-83, while he was the leader of the country's Jesuits. And human rights activists differ on how much blame he personally deserves.

Top church leaders had endorsed the junta and some priests even worked alongside torturers inside secret prisons. Nobody has produced any evidence suggesting Bergoglio had anything to do with such crimes. But many activists are angry that as archbishop of Buenos Aires for more than a decade, he didn't do more to support investigations into the atrocities.

On Thursday, the old ghosts resurfaced.

A group of 44 former military and police officers on trial for torture, rape and murder in a concentration camp in Cordoba province in the 1970s wore the yellow-and-white ribbons of the papal flag in Francis' honor. Many Argentine newspapers ran the photo Friday.

The Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi noted that Argentine courts had never accused Bergoglio of any crime, that he had denied all accusations against him and that on the contrary "there have been many declarations demonstrating how much Bergoglio did to protect many persons at the time."

He said the accusations against the new pope were made long ago "by anti-clerical left-wing elements to attack the church. They must be firmly rejected."

The harsh denunciation was typical of a Vatican that often reacts defensively when it feels under attack, even though its response served to give the story legs for another day.

It interrupted the generally positive reception Francis has enjoyed since his election as pope on Wednesday, when even his choice of footwear — his old black shoes rather than the typical papal red — was noted as a sign of his simplicity and humility.

There was one clearly unscripted moment Friday, when the 76-year-old Francis stumbled briefly during an audience with the cardinals, but he quickly recovered. And for the second day in a row, Francis slipped out of the Vatican walls, this time to visit an ailing Argentine cardinal, Jorge Mejia, who suffered a heart attack Wednesday and was in the hospital.

This upbeat narrative of a people's pope who named himself after the nature-loving St. Francis of Assisi has clashed with accusations stemming from Bergoglio's past.

The worst allegation is that as the military junta took over in 1976, he withdrew support for two Jesuit priests whose work in the slums of Buenos Aires had put them in direct contact with the leftist guerrilla movement advocating armed revolution. The priests were then kidnapped and interrogated inside a clandestine torture center at the Navy Mechanics School.

Bergoglio said he had told the priests — Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics — to give up their slum work for their own safety, and they refused. Yorio later accused Bergoglio of effectively delivering them to the death squads by declining to publicly endorse their work. Yorio died in Uruguay in 2000.

Jalics, who had maintained silence about the events, issued a statement Friday saying he spoke with Bergoglio years later and the two celebrated Mass together and hugged "solemnly."

"I am reconciled to the events and consider the matter to be closed," he said.

Bergoglio told his official biographer, Sergio Rubin, in 2010, that he had gone to extraordinary, behind-the-scenes lengths to save the men.

The Jesuit leader persuaded the family priest of feared dictator Jorge Videla to call in sick so Bergoglio could say Mass instead and take the opportunity to successfully appeal for their release, Rubin wrote.

Lombardi said the airing of the accusations following Francis' election was "characterized by a campaign that's often slanderous and defamatory."

Earlier this week, Lombardi issued a similar denunciation of an advocacy group for victims of sexual abuse, accusing it of using the media spotlight on the conclave to try to publicize old accusations against cardinals. The accusations, Lombardi said, are baseless and the cardinals deserve everyone's "esteem."

The accusations against Bergoglio were fanned by Horacio Verbitzky, an investigative journalist who was a leftist militant in the 1970s and is now closely aligned with the government. He has written extensively about the accusations in Argentina's Pagina12 newspaper, a left-wing daily known for advocacy journalism.

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who won the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize for documenting the junta's atrocities, said this week that "Bergoglio was no accomplice of the dictatorship."

"Perhaps he didn't have the courage of other priests, but he never collaborated with the dictatorship," Esquivel said on Buenos Aires' Radio de la Red.

Argentine political analyst Ignacio Fidanza concurred.

"What they're demanding is that during the dictatorship he should have planted himself in the Plaza de Mayo and shouted against it," he told The Associated Press. "It was probably more effective to speak in silence, since it was an extreme situation."

Human rights investigators in Argentina have been unable to make any other cases against Bergoglio from the junta years, other than the allegations concerning the two Jesuits and that he failed to help a family find their murdered daughter's illegally adopted baby.

But activists are also angry that as leader of the Argentine church, he has never acknowledged or apologized for what they describe as the church's active institutional support of the military government, said Gaston Chillier, who tracks the country's human rights cases as director of the Center for Legal and Social Studies.

The church was so deeply in league with the dictators that when the Inter-American Human Rights Commission came for an inspection in 1979, the Argentine navy moved many detainees to an island owned by the diocese during the visit.

"He is responsible during Argentina's period of democracy for continuing a cover-up," Chillier told the AP. "His knowledge of these cases clearly shows that he cannot deny the torture and the systematic theft of babies."

Bergoglio testified in 2010 that he didn't know anything about baby thefts until well after the dictatorship.

Since Bergoglio became archbishop in 1998, his church has issued several apologies for failing to do more to protect people from violence that came from both the right and the left. The latest, in October 2012, was the most forceful, and it also, for the first time, asked Catholics to come forward with whatever evidence they may have to support Argentina's human rights trials.

But Chillier says Bergoglio could have done more to make the church help identify children and the bodies of detainees as well as identify those responsible for atrocities.

"It's one thing to acknowledge what you failed to do, but another entirely to apologize for what you actually did," Chillier said.

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Warren and Almudena Calatrava contributed from Buenos Aires. David Rising in Berlin contributed.

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Iran, Russia, Vatican threaten to derail U.N. women's rights appeal

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - An "unholy alliance" of Iran, Russia, the Vatican and others is threatening to derail a U.N. declaration urging an end to violence against women and girls by objecting to language on sexual, reproductive and gay rights, some U.N. diplomats said Wednesday.

Delegates to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women are racing to reach a consensus deal on a final document by Friday and some diplomats say the future of the commission - a global policy-making body created in 1946 for the advancement of women - is at risk if they fail to broker a compromise.

"There's this sort of unholy alliance ... coming together to oppose language on sexual health, reproductive rights and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) rights," one senior U.N. diplomat said. "It's tough going, but progress is being made."

"People recognize that if there's a failure again this year to get an outcome document, then the whole future of the status of women commission is at risk," he said on condition of anonymity because negotiations are still underway.

Russia, the Vatican, Iran and other conservative Muslim states including Egypt, object to references to access to emergency contraception, abortion and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, women's rights activists said.

Last year, disagreements over similar issues prevented the commission from agreeing on a declaration of a theme of empowering rural women. Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile and head of U.N. Women, which supports the commission, described last year's impasse as "deeply regrettable" and disappointing.

Diplomats say key sticking points in this year's draft text again revolve around sexual and reproductive rights, the inclusion of gay rights and an amendment proposed by Egypt that would allow countries to avoid implementing recommendations if they clashed with national laws, religious or cultural values.

"It's still a big fight," said one U.N. diplomat involved in negotiations and speaking on the condition of anonymity, adding that language on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights of women was unlikely to be included in a final document.

CULTURAL TRADITION

Egypt's amendment to recognize states' sovereign rights in implementing the commission's recommendations was made on behalf of the African group of nations, although diplomats say several African countries distanced themselves from the proposal.

Some diplomats and rights activists said the Egypt amendment undermines the entire declaration by allowing states to ignore calls to end cultural and religious practices, such as female genital mutilation. Western human rights advocates say the idea of cultural tradition is often used to justify abuse of women.

"There's also an amendment that Russia has put forward about how unilateral sanctions are promoting violence against women, which strikes us as a bit of a stretch and it's slightly out of place," the senior U.N. diplomat said.

The reference to unilateral sanctions appeared to be in relation to U.S. and EU sanctions against Iran and Syria.

Russia's difficulties with language on sexual, reproductive and gay rights appears to be driven by what critics have described as a bid by President Vladimir Putin to shore up support in his country's largely conservative society.

Putin has criticized gays for failing to help reverse a population decline. Putin has also drawn closer to the Russian Orthodox Church, one of the most influential institutions in Russia.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and a special adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, also recently cited low birth rates in Russia and Iran as one possible reason for their stance on reproductive rights.

Another senior U.N. diplomat predicted that a watered down document would likely be agreed by Friday to "save face."

Shannon Kowalski, director of advocacy and policy at the International Women's Health Coalition, said prominent cases of violence against women, such as the shooting of a Pakistani schoolgirl and education advocate and the gang rape of a young woman in India, has mobilized women around the world.

"Countries can't go back home and look women in the eye and tell them they could not reach agreement on ending violence against women," said Kowalski, who has been following the negotiations. "There's a lot of pressure here to have a strong agreement."

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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US cardinals seek answers on Vatican dysfunction

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Cardinals said Monday they want to talk to Vatican managers about allegations of corruption and cronyism within the top levels of the Catholic Church before they elect the next pope, evidence that a scandal over leaked papal documents is setting up one of the most unpredictable papal elections in recent times.

The Vatican said 103 of the 115 voting-age cardinals attended Monday's inaugural session of the pre-conclave meetings, at which cardinals organize the election process, discuss the problems of the church and get to know one another before voting.

The red-capped "princes" of the church took an oath of secrecy and decided to pen a letter of "greeting and gratitude" to Benedict XVI, whose resignation has thrown the church into turmoil amid a torrent of scandals inside and out of the Vatican.

"I would imagine that as we move along there will be questioning of cardinals involved in the governing of the Curia to see what they think has to be changed, and in that context anything can come up," said U.S. Cardinal Francis George.

The Vatican's administrative shortcomings were thrust into stark relief last year with the publication of documents stolen from Benedict XVI's desk that exposed the petty infighting, turf battles and allegations of corruption, nepotism and cronyism in the highest echelons of the Catholic Church.

The pope's butler was convicted of stealing the papers and leaking them to a journalist; he eventually received a papal pardon.

The emeritus pope, meanwhile, remained holed up at the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo, his temporary retirement home while the discussions on picking his successor kick into gear in Rome.

No date has been set yet for the conclave and one may not be decided on officially for a few more days; the dean of the College of Cardinals has said a date won't be finalized until all the cardinals have arrived.

Twelve more voting-age cardinals were en route to Rome; some had previously scheduled speaking engagements, others were due in later Monday or in the coming days, the Vatican said. Their absence, however, didn't otherwise delay the conclave's preparations.

Speculation has mounted that the conclave might begin around March 11, with the aim of having a new pope installed by March 17, the Sunday before Palm Sunday and the start of Holy Week.

With 115 electors, 77 votes are needed to reach the two-thirds majority to be elected pope.

Those who were in Rome prayed together Monday, chatted over coffee and took an oath to maintain "rigorous secrecy with regard to all matters in any way related to the election of the Roman Pontiff."

The core agenda item is to set the date for the conclave and put in place the procedures to prepare for it, including closing the Sistine Chapel to visitors and getting the Vatican hotel cleared out and swept for bugs or other electronic monitoring devices, lest anyone try to listen in on the cardinals' secret conversations.

Yet the first day of discussion was rocked by new revelations of scandal after Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien admitted that his "sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal."

O'Brien last week resigned as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh and said he wouldn't participate in the conclave after four men came forward with allegations that he had acted inappropriately with them — the first time a cardinal has stayed away from a conclave because of personal scandal.

The Vatican on Monday refused to confirm whether it was investigating O'Brien, even though the Scottish church's press office said the allegations had been forwarded to the Vatican and that it expected Rome would pursue the case.

Pressed to respond to reports of a fifth accuser who reportedly approached the Vatican directly in October with accusations, a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Thomas Rosica, read O'Brien's statement admitting to sexual misconduct and said the Vatican would say no more.

The Vatican and cardinals attending the session said the O'Brien case didn't come up during formal or informal conversations.

"It's a tragic moment for him," George said.

At a briefing discussing the priorities for the future pontificate, George said the next pope will have to follow canon law and keep priests who molested children out of parishes.

"He obviously has to accept the universal code of the church which is zero tolerance for anyone who has ever abused a minor child and therefore may not remain in public ministry in the church," George said. "That has to be accepted. I don't think that will be a problem."

Separately, the Vatican is still reeling from the fallout of the scandal over leaked papal documents, and the investigation by three cardinals into who was behind it.

American cardinals seem particularly keen to get to the bottom of the Vatican dysfunction, and they have had access to a very knowledgeable tutor, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican's ambassador to Washington.

Vigano's letters to the pope were the most explosive leaks of documents last year; in them, Vigano pleaded with Benedict not to be transferred after exposing alleged corruption in the awarding of Vatican contracts that cost the Holy See millions of euros (dollars).

Vigano was named the Vatican's ambassador to Washington, and as such has been able to give U.S. cardinals a clear-eyed view of the true state of the Vatican, said Corriere della Sera commentator Massimo Franco.

"They have appreciated him very much because he doesn't read the Vatican situation with a rosy lens, a rosy view," Franco said in an interview.

In his new book "The Crisis of the Vatican Empire," Franco paints a portrait of a Vatican completely falling apart, with financial scandals at its bank, backstabbing among its ruling class and the sex abuse scandal discrediting the church on the global stage.

"If we think of the pope, in a way the pope decided to sacrifice himself because he couldn't change anything," Franco said.

Coupled with the upheaval of Benedict's resignation, the scandals have contributed to create one of the most unclear papal elections in recent times.

"It will be a very open conclave with a very unpredictable outcome," Franco said.

In one of his last audiences before resigning, Benedict gave the three cardinals who investigated the leaks the go-ahead to answer their colleagues' questions about the results of their investigation.

"There are members of the College of Cardinals who are interested in having information that has to do with the situation in the Curia and the church in general and will ask to be informed by their colleagues," Lombardi said.

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Trisha Thomas and Rachel Zoll contributed to this report.

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Papal vote preparations start in earnest at Vatican

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Preparations for electing Roman Catholicism's new leader begin in earnest on Monday as the College of Cardinals opens daily talks to sketch an identikit for the next pope and ponder who among them might fit it.

The idea is to have the new pope elected during next week and officially installed several days later so he can preside over the Holy Week ceremonies starting with Palm Sunday on March 24 and culminating in Easter the following Sunday.

The general congregations, closed-door meetings in the interregnum between a papacy and the conclave to choose the next one, will hold morning and afternoon sessions in an apparent effort to discuss as much as possible in a short time.

The list of challenges facing the crisis-hit Church could take weeks to debate, but the Vatican seems keen to have only a week of talks so the 115 cardinal electors -- those under 80 -- can enter the Sistine Chapel for the conclave next week.

High on the agenda will be Church governance after last year's Vatileaks scandal exposed corruption and rivalries in the Vatican's Curia bureaucracy. Cardinals expect to be briefed on a secret report to the pope on the problems it highlighted.

"We should know about some things we don't have enough information about because of our work or the distance (from Rome)," Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga told Italian television.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston in Texas, noted more than half the cardinal electors had been named since the now retired Pope Benedict was chosen in 2005 and had to find out how this most secretive of elections is conducted.

"Part of this is learning," he told journalists. Cardinals over 80 can attend the general congregations and discuss issues with the electors, but not take part in the conclave itself.

SIZING UP CANDIDATES

The meetings are also a time for sizing up the undeclared candidates by watching them closely in the debates and checking discreetly with other cardinals about their qualifications.

"I don't think any of us will go in saying 'this is who I will vote for'," Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley said. "You're faced with a number of choices."

One urgent decision the cardinals must take is when to go into the conclave. Only all 115 electors can make the decision and not all are in Rome yet, so it may take a few days before the actual date is set.

Cardinals never reveal publicly who they prefer but drop hints in interviews by discussing the identikit for their ideal candidate. The most frequently mentioned quality here is an ability to communicate the Catholic faith convincingly.

Several strike a note of nostalgia for the charismatic late Pope John Paul after eight years of his shy successor Benedict, who shocked the Catholic world by becoming the first pope in almost 600 years to resign last month.

Most cardinals say the new pope could come from outside Europe, but it is not clear if the conclave, which has a slight majority of European cardinals, will break the long-standing tradition of choosing only men from the continent.

SEXUAL ABUSE CRISIS

The sexual abuse crisis haunting the Church should also play a role, especially since one elector - Cardinal Keith O'Brien - quit as Edinburgh archbishop last week and pulled out of attending the conclave because of abuse accusations against him.

O'Brien initially denied the allegations but issued a statement on Sunday evening apologizing because "my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal."

Two cardinals mentioned as possible candidates added other issues to the discussion list in interviews with Reuters.

Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, an Argentine who heads the Curia department for Eastern Catholic Churches, said the Church must give women more leadership positions in the Vatican and beyond.

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan said the growing phenomenon of people believing in God but rejecting organized churches, known among sociologists of religion as "believing without belonging," was a major challenge for the Church in future.

(Reporting By Tom Heneghan; Editing by Stephen Powell)

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