From The Guardian-Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, archbishop emeritus of Westminster, who has died aged 85, was there or thereabouts at several crucial points in the recent history of the Catholic church. The extent to which he actually influenced the events in which he participated, though, was always hard to assess, partly because this genial cleric naturally played down his own importance, and was much more comfortable in casting himself as the benign parish priest rather than a prince of the church.
Some claimed, though, that his was an influential voice among the small group of liberal-minded cardinals – known as “la squadra” – behind the surprise election at the papal conclave of March 2013 of the “change candidate”, the Argentinian Pope Francis. A few months after his election, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was apparently lightheartedly to credit Murphy-O’Connor, when the two met at a papal audience. The pope pointed to his old friend and said, “You’re to blame!” But, as Murphy-O’Connor subsequently noted, because he was over 80 at the time of the conclave, church rules had allowed him to participate only in the preliminary discussions, and not in the actual vote in the Sistine Chapel.
More here-
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/01/cardinal-cormac-murphy-o-connor-obituary
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