Indonesian cardinal to sit out conclave for next pope
An undated portrait shows Cardinal Julius Riyadi Darmaatmadja, Archbishop of Jakarta, Indonesia, Military Ordinary for Indonesia, who was born 20 December 1934 in Muntilan, Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. He was ordained a priest on 18 December 1969.
JAKARTA–Indonesia’s cardinal, one of the 117 expected to elect a new pope, will not go to Rome for the vote due to ailing health, he said in an interview with a Catholic magazine.
Cardinal Julius Riyadi Darmaatmadja, 78, said his eyesight was failing and that he would not be able to handle reading the “texts, materials, rules, and so on” necessary for the event.
“I will not go. My eyesight does not allow me to be involved,” he told Hidup Katolik magazine in its February 24 edition.
The pope is scheduled to officially resign on February 28 at 1900 GMT. He will become only the second pope to resign of his own free will in the Church’s 2,000-year history.
