Picking a Pope: The world awaits

• Published March 09, 2013 Modified March 08, 2013

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T he College of Cardinals began meeting this week in the Sistine Chapel to select a successor to Pope Benedict XVI. While the Cardinals will meet daily before going into the conclave, insiders say the real business of picking a Pope occurs in the evening. Small groups of Cardinals will talk in restaurants and in private apartments, over grappa and anisette, and around the water cooler. These small, private meetings create the coalitions from which front-runners start to emerge.

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