The fifth General Congregation of the College of Cardinals will be held on Thursday, 7 March 2013 at 9.30 am in the morning, and then followed by another General Congregation, the sixth one, in the early evening at 5 pm. All times depicted here are Rome time or CET / UTC+1.

As by Thursday all Cardinal-electors should already be in Rome, and the fact that there will be two General Congregations on this day, is possibly that the Cardinals are hoping to finish up any matters before the start of the Conclave, and that in one of the two General Congregations, the date of the start of the Conclave may be decided. Only one Cardinal yet to arrive, Cardinal Jean-Baptiste Pham Minh-Man, Metropolitan Archbishop of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. The other 114 Cardinal-electors (out of 115) have arrived in Rome and taken part in the General Congregations.

Look forward to the press briefing by Fr. Federico Lombardi, head of the Holy See Press Office on Thursday, 7 March 2013 at 1 pm Rome time / CET / UTC+1. If the date has been decided in the Fifth General Congregation in the morning, it will likely be announced in the press briefing, otherwise, as Fr. Lombardi has mentioned in his press briefing earlier, that if the Cardinals decide the date in the evening’s Sixth General Congregation, he will pass the message to the accredited news reporters to break the news to the world.

Let us continue to pray for our Church, for the Cardinal-electors, and for the smooth preparation and proceeding of the Conclave!