The Vatican on Friday gave its blessing to a new German website
called “Adopt a Cardinal” that is encouraging the faithful to pray for
individual cardinals chosen at random by a computer programme.
“The cardinals were informed about the website. A lot of people have
signed up,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters,
referring to ongoing pre-conclave talks in the Vatican.
“There is a movement of prayer with the help of a website,” Lombardi said.
When
a person signs up to adoptacardinal.org, he or she is randomly
allocated one of the 115 “cardinal electors” who will take part in next
week’s conclave to elect a new pope.
More than 350,000 people have signed up so far to the website, which aims to help Catholic faithful concentrate their prayers.
“The cardinals need to be prayed for,” said Ulli Heckl, a 37-year-old
from Germany who is one of the creators of the website and a member of
Youth 2000, an international Catholic movement that is backing the site.
Heckl said there had been huge interest from parishes, religious
congregations and even old people’s homes where many have been
concentrating their prayers on a particular cardinal to help him make
the right choice.