(RNS) — Earlier than the final conclave, Ulrike Heckl discovered herself images of the cardinals who have been getting ready to elect the following pope and questioning on the enormity of the accountability on their shoulders. In that second, she had a easy thought: “They want prayers.”
A good friend of Heckl’s was main YOUTH 2000 Germany, a Catholic initiative targeted on retreats, adoration, pilgrimages and different non secular actions for younger individuals. And collectively they created Undertake a Cardinal, a website the place individuals around the globe may come and be randomly assigned to wish for one of many cardinals on the 2013 conclave.
In Athens, Georgia, Anne Marie Vencill learn concerning the web site and located the concept interesting. “We’re so faraway from what occurs with the common church right here,” she defined in a cellphone interview. “When one thing just like the conclave occurs, you possibly can learn all about it on social media, however how do you as a person interact?”
Vencill advised her good friend Ellen Ritchey concerning the website, and the 2 of them signed up. “I believed, ‘That sounds type of attention-grabbing,’” Ritchey agreed with Vencill that it was “a strategy to be somewhat extra engaged with every part occurring.”
Each have been assigned cardinals from different elements of the world, males they’d by no means heard of. Whereas Vencill did some research on her cardinal, George Pell of Sydney, Ritchey didn’t really feel any nice urgency to take action. “He was simply my individual to wish for,” she explains. “It wasn’t just like the Candy 16. You weren’t praying for them to be pope. You have been praying for them to have knowledge, to be open to the Holy Spirit.”
However then on March 13, 2013, Ritchey was shocked to get a textual content from Vencill: “Your man is the pope.”
Ellen Ritchey, left, and Anne Marie Vencill rehearse music. (Courtesy photograph)
“The truth that I knew he was this one who was there and part of this course of, after which he was elected, it type of blew me away,” Ritchey mentioned.
Earlier than she texted Ritchey that day, Vencill remembers being “on the ironing board when the white smoke went up and introduced that it was Cardinal Bergoglio.”
Over half one million individuals around the globe have been collaborating in Undertake a Cardinal when Francis was elected. And Heckl was awed by the artistic methods individuals approached her concept.
“We heard again from households printing out the image of their Cardinal and giving it a spot of their prayer nook and their household prayer instances,” she recalled in an e-mail. “There have been college courses making this a mission the place they’d discover out about their Cardinals, their international locations and their duties and praying collectively for them.” Some parishes, she mentioned, additionally had the concept of writing the names of all of the cardinals on slips of paper for older parishioners who didn’t use e-mail and letting them choose a cardinal out of a basket.
Years later, they have been nonetheless getting emails from individuals who had participated, speaking about how they continued to wish for “their” cardinal.
“It introduced tears to my eyes,” Heckl mentioned. “There are such fantastic individuals on the market, it actually provides you hope. The thought that we may play somewhat half in that is deeply rewarding.”
Cardinals attend a Mass on the third of 9 days of mourning for the late Pope Francis, in St. Peter’s Basilica on the Vatican, April 28, 2025. (AP Photograph/Andrew Medichini)
After Francis died, Ritchey went again to the Undertake a Cardinal web site and located a “poignant image” of Francis trying away, as if enterprise a journey on which we couldn’t observe. The web site promised that it might be offering names once more quickly. And as of the tip of final week it’s once more up and operating. After prompting for an e-mail handle, the positioning instantly presents the title, diocese and {photograph} of a cardinal. Heckl says they take specific care, as properly, to ensure each cardinal will get an equal variety of individuals praying for them. “We wish every of the Cardinals to be prayed for.”
This time round Vencill has been sharing the positioning with many individuals. “My 83-year-old mom has even adopted a Cardinal,” she mentioned. “She travels in additional conservative circles than I do. She advised me, ‘I received the one I didn’t need. The Holy Spirit has a humorous humorousness.’”
Vencill is discovering that sharing the positioning with others is deepening her expertise even additional. “It’s actually enjoyable to dialogue about it,” she says. “There’s the joy of ‘I received this man,’ ‘Oh, I received this man,’ and going to look them up and be taught their views.
“It makes the conclave really feel rather more private. It isn’t simply us ready for one thing to occur over there. It’s occurring right here, too, and I’ve a tiny half to play.”
Ritchey agrees: “It entails the lay neighborhood within the course of.”
“We’re one physique in Christ,” Heckl says. “Undertake a Cardinal is a second the place we’re capable of get a glimpse or a really feel of the ability of the Catholic Church as a worldwide common church. It was and is such a blessing to know you’re united in prayer with so many others.”
For Ritchey, Pope Francis’ papacy was characterised by the need to empower the laity. “He was a pastor,” she mentioned. “My highest hope is that the conclave will choose anyone who can choose up the place he left off, proceed the synodal course of and proceed all these prospects, just like the diaconate for ladies, as a result of we’d like it.”
A conclave is extra than simply the cardinals concerned, says Vencill: “If the method is adopted because it’s outlined, there’s room for the Spirit to come back in.
“If we simply let go and provides the Spirit room to work, she’ll do fabulous issues.”
