By Jane Nambi

Being the Catholic Pope is a blessing, a pride to the family and everyone who knows him. Well, it is not the same for the mother of Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn’s mother.

92-year-old Eleonore Schoenborn, mother to Cardinal Christoph said she does not want her 68-year-old son to be elected as pope because that would mean less time for him to visit her.

“The whole family is afraid that Christoph will be elected pope,” Eleonore Schoenborn, 92, said. “it is over for me. Then I will not see Christoph ever again because I no longer have the strength to travel to Rome,” she added. Cardinal Schoenborn meets his mother for a couple of weeks every year in Vienna. He also calls her every Saturday. Eleonore lives in Vorarlberg province.

In addition to missing him, Eleanor fears her son will have a hard time to lead the 1.2 billion Catholics in the entire world. “Christoph would not be up to the bitchiness in the Vatican. The intrigues in Vienna are enough for him,” she said.

Schoenborn is among the front-runners for being elected as the next Catholic pope after Pope Benedict XVI resigned on February 28th. The papal conclave yesterday started meeting to elect a new pope but at the end of the day, black smoke came out of the chimney showing they did not manage to vote a new pope.

Today, the conclave convenes again. If white smoke is seen at the chimney, it shows that the conclave has managed to get the next pope. There are 115 cardinals involved in the voting of the next pope but of these, only 77 have to agree on one candidate for him to pass as the pope.