In a new book-length interview due for publication this week, Pope Francis says that he was “used” by other prelates who wanted to prevent the election of Pope Benedict XVI in the conclave of 2005.
The Pope says that opponents of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger put forward his name as an alternative at the 2005 conclave. He says that his supporters might have blocked the election of Pope Benedict, until he told them not to “joke with my candidacy.”
In the new book—The Successor, consisting of a long interview with Spanish journalist Javier Martinez-Brocal—Pope Francis says that he himself regarded Cardinal Ratzinger as “the only one who could be Pope at that time.” He says the cardinals wre looking for “a transitional Pope” after the long reign of Pope John Paul II.
In The Successor, the Pontiff reflects on the situation in which the Pope-emeritus was his neighbor at the Vatican. The book is scheduled for publication on April 3. Excerpts were published on March 31 in the Spanish daily ABC.