The coming conclave: how the next pope will be chosen

Somehow, talking about conclaves feels unseemly--even ghoulish--while John Paul II suffers so visibly. Still, we must talk about conclaves and what comes next, just as we should have those unsettling conversations about health-care proxies and wills. This conversation leads to and touches on the biggest ecclesiological issues of our time: the collegiality of bishops; the authority of the papacy and the bishops' role in the magisterium; and the shared governance and decision making of all the baptized. The great unfinished business of Vatican II will surely dominate the conclave that will follow one of the most centralizing papacies in church history.

The college of cardinals

The story of papal elections is really the story of the college of cardinals, which functions like the unelected aristocracies of the ancien regime. For the first millennium of Christianity, the college as we know it did not exist. We can find traces in the late Roman Empire and early Middle Ages, when up to three dozen cardinal bishops, priests, and deacons controlled the most important churches in Rome and its suburbs. Then, as now, the laity did not elect the cardinals or play even a limited role in their selection.

The college of cardinals took shape in the High Middle Ages, when popes built the papacy as a monarchy with its attendant court, bureaucracy, and ideology. This structure mirrored the royal monarchies that challenged the church's supremacy and limited her freedom. To spread their authority, popes, beginning with Leo IX (1049-54), granted the status of cardinal to their closest advisers, and made their roles more administrative than liturgical. Pope Paschal II (1099-1118) appointed numerous cardinals legates to export the idea of papal monarchy in their travels and, back in Rome, to head curial departments, a practice that persists today.

Before the late twentieth century, the college rarely exceeded several dozen cardinals, although the rules set by Sixtus V (1585-90) provided for up to 70 members. The conclave that selected John XXIII had 58 cardinals, and Paul VI was chosen in a conclave of 80; the 1978 elections were carried out by 111 electors--a huge and unprecedented number. At the moment there are nearly 225 cardinals. If the conclave were held today, about 135 could participate because they are under eighty, the age limit for voting members set by Paul VI. He didn't, however, set an age limit for a pope, which raised some episcopal eyebrows. Paul VI's decision is being questioned again as John Paul II's health continues to deteriorate.

Electing the pope

In the first millennium, cardinals shared the task of choosing the popes with the leading families of Rome. In 1059, Nicholas II took the first of several steps to shelter the medieval papacy--especially papal elections--from the interference of such families. He granted the cardinals the lead role in selecting the pope, although the sitting pope and the Roman clergy could let their choices be known. A century later, in 1179, Lateran III gave the cardinals the exclusive right to elect a pope, and mandated a two-thirds majority as sufficient for election, since unanimity was surely impossible.

So how did the idea of a conclave come about? In the longest period in church history without a pope, almost three years (1268-71), the election was held in Viterbo. It was open, fractured, and politicized. Finally, the city's leaders locked the cardinals in a house, removed the roof, and promised to put them on a strict diet if they couldn't agree on a candidate. They selected Gregory X (1271-76), who did not soon forget the lesson of his election. At Lyons II in 1274, he ordered that the cardinals would subsequently meet in the city where the pope, who frequently traveled in Italy and France during the Middle Ages, had died. (The last time an election was held outside of Rome was in Venice in 1800 after Pius VI died as Napoleon's prisoner in France.) To accelerate the process, the rules stipulated that the cardinals be locked in a room with a key (cum clave = conclave), could not draw funds from the papal treasury, and would be fed only bread, water, and wine if they failed to reach a decision after eight days. This system--minus the restricted diet--remains in place, although the next conclave will be held in Rome regardless of where the pope dies.

When a pope dies these days, there is no mystery as to what will occur next. His death triggers a well-defined process. All means of communication (phone, fax, computers) between the pope's rooms and the outside world will be severed. The papal apartment will be sealed, the pope's ring defaced--a remnant of the time when the ring was used to seal documents with wax: the ring is destroyed so no one can claim a deathbed appointment to a choice job. Following the rules codified in 1975 by Paul VI and in 1996 by John Paul II, the conclave will begin fifteen to twenty days after the pope's death, with his funeral taking place during a nine-day period of mourning. Before the conclave, the college of cardinals will meet several times. Cardinals who cannot vote because of their age, such as Fordham University's Avery Dulles, may participate in these preparatory meetings and exercise a measure of influence.