He was known as the People’s Pope thanks to his humility and kindness, and will be a tough act to follow. But a successor has to be found for the late Pope Francis, so the highly secretive election to choose a new pontiff, called a conclave, is getting underway in the coming days.
More people are aware of the process of choosing a leader of the Catholic Church thanks to it being dramatised in the 2024 Oscar-winning movie Conclave, but there’s still plenty of mystery surrounding the centuries-old tradition. Here’s what we do know about what goes on behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel.
Who gets to vote?
The new pope is chosen by cardinals in the Catholic Church, but only those aged under 80 are allowed to vote. That means 135 cardinals will get to take part in this conclave, including New Zealand Cardinal John Dew.
Twenty of the cardinals voting in this conclave were appointed by Pope Francis in December. They are believed to support the modern ideals he stood for, such as LGBTQ inclusivity. Overall, as many as 80 percent of electors voting for his successor were chosen by him throughout his 12 years as head of the church.
Did you know: The word “conclave” comes from the Latin meaning “under lock and key”.
Sequestered in secret
The conclave takes place in the Sistine Chapel, where the cardinals swear an oath of secrecy. They lock the doors and post the famous Swiss Guards outside. There is also a ban on dell phones and other devices.
The cardinals used to have to sleep on cots in rooms in the chapel. Now they spend nights in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, a guesthouse next to St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
Narrowing it down
The College of Cardinals has identified 22 cardinals as “papabili” or likely papal candidates. Electors write the name of the person they want on a ballot paper. Then, they fold it twice and drop it into a large chalice on the altar. Three cardinals chosen at random to be scrutineers count the papers to make sure everyone has voted, record the names and then read them out.
One round of voting is held on the first evening of the conclave and after that, voting sessions are held up to four times a day until one person gets two-thirds of the vote. At the end of each session, the ballots are thrown in the Sistine Chapel’s fireplace. If a pope is yet to be chosen, chemicals are added to make the smoke that billows out of the chimney black. When the new pontiff is elected, the smoke is white. Thousands of people gather outside to wait for the white smoke.
We have a winner
Once the victorious contender has been revealed, he’s asked: “Will you be Pope”, and, “What will your name be?” He’s then dressed in official papal vestments – three sets in small, medium and large sizes are kept ready to go. The senior cardinal deacon will step out onto the balcony of St Peter’s to tell the crowd below, “Habemus Papam (“We have a pope”)”. He’ll then introduce the new leader by the name he chose.
What’s in a name?
- The first thing the new pope will do after accepting the job is decide on the name he’ll be known by. It’s become tradition to adopt a papal name, which may have been used many times before.
- The first pope to change his name was John II (elected in 533). His given name was Mercurius, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to have a pope with a name associated with a Roman god (Mercury), so chose something more suitable.
- Two men named Peter who were elected as pope changed their names out of respect for the first pope, St Peter. They became John XIV and Sergius IV.
- The most commonly used name is John, with 21 popes choosing it (not counting two John Pauls). There have been 16 Gregorys, 15 Benedicts, 14 Clements and 13 Innocents and Leos.
- 44 names have been used once, including Peter, Mark, Zachary and Francis.
A brief history of conclaves
- The first pope was St Peter, one of Jesus’ 12 disciples. He wasn’t chosen via a conclave, but appointed as Bishop of Rome, and also considered as pope, by Jesus in AD30.
- In 236, a man named Fabian, who wasn’t even a candidate for pope. A dove (the symbol of the Holy Spirit) landed on his shoulder and earned him the job.
- The longest it’s taken for a pope to be chosen was two years and nine months. Cardinals were unable to agree on a candidate between 1268 and 1271, until forced to make a decision by the King of France. Gregory X got the job.
- The longest conclave in modern times was six months, back in 1740. Most usually last between two days and a week.
- The shortest conclave since the period before the 1200s, when they were often notoriously quick, was in 1503. Pope Julius II got the nod in just under 10 hours.
- In 1605, the conclave erupted into violence when it got down to the final two candidates. One elderly cardinal suffered broken bones.
Pope Francis was one of a kind
The man who ended up becoming Pope Francis wasn’t a front-runner for the top job. In fact, he wasn’t on many “papabili” lists because of his age. Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio was 76 when he was selected in 2013 to head the Catholic Church. He was a surprise choice because as well as getting on in years, he was the first non-European pope in nearly 1300 years.
He was also the first pope from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere and the first Jesuit pope.
People knew the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires for championing the poor. People also admired his criticising the rich and privileged for not doing more to help the less fortunate. He walked the talk. After becoming a cardinal and moving to Rome, he lived in a simple apartment. There, he cooked his own meals and took public transport.
When he stepped out on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome as the leader of more than one billion Catholics around the world, there was speculation about whether his new status would change him. It didn’t.
“My people are poor and I am one of them,” the Pope said.
Choosing the name Francis in honour of St Francis of Assisi – the saint of the poor, the humble and the earth – signaled his intention to live a life of humility and service, and he started immediately. That night, instead of a driver taking him to his quarters in a papal car, the Pope took a coach with the rest of the cardinals. And rather than moving into the lavish papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace, home continued to be a two-room suite in the modest Vatican guesthouse Domus Sanctae Marthae.
Taking the bus once he was the pope was out of the question for security reasons. But instead of a limousine, he for a driver to take him in an affordable and practical Ford Focus.
The cardinals who chose him as their leader had recognised the qualities that would make him a humble pope. It didn’t take them long to decide on Cardinal Bergoglio – they chose him on the second day of the conclave, in the fifth ballot.
While the conclave proceedings remain secret, one cardinal has since disclosed something happened when Francis was selected, which revealed his sense of humour. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, says, “We toasted him, then he toasted us and said, ‘May God forgive you’.”
Did you know: The man chosen to replace Pope Francis will be the 267th pope.
Last man chosen as Pope
Who was Jorge Bergolio?
- Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires in 1936. His Italian father had emigrated to Argentina as a child with his parents, fleeing Mussolini’s facist regime.
- Jorge worked as a chemical technician for a food manufacturer. He also had part-time jobs as a bouncer and a janitor.
- At 21, he nearly died from pneumonia and had to have part of his lung removed.
- He became interested in the priesthood at 22. However, he briefly doubted his choice of career after developing a crush on a girl. He went on to become a Jesuit priest.
- As a priest he taught literature and psychology at high schools, and later became a professor of theology.
- He earned the nickname Slum Bishop when, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he would regularly visit the city’s shanty towns.
A progressive Pope
In his 12 years as pontiff, Pope Francis took some radical steps, including:
- Calling for the Catholic Church to be more sympathetic towards LGBTQ people and homosexuality to be decriminalised.
- Becoming the first pope to receive a transgender person at the Vatican.
- Criticising trickle-down economics and consumerism.
- Supporting action on climate change.
- Denouncing the death penalty as intrinsically evil.
- Apologising for the church’s role in the “cultural genocide” of indigenous peoples in Canada.
- Speaking out about the “deplorable humanitarian situation” in Palestine as a result of the war with Israel, and also condemning the global rise of anti-Semitism.
- Acknowledging sexual abuse carried out by priests and clergy, convening a summit on sexual abuse in the church and announcing new rules for reporting priests.
Author Austen Ivereigh, who has written two biographies on Francis, says the pope’s greatest achievement was “the bold, radical way he sought to put mercy. ‘God’s style’, he called it – at the heart of all the Church teaches and does.”
The Pope practised what he preached. After his death, insiders revealed that since the start of the war in Palestine 18 months ago, he had made a WhatsApp call to a small Catholic church in Gaza nearly every day, including when he was in hospital with pneumonia, to check on its parishioners. “He used to call us at 7pm every night. It didn’t matter where he was,” says George Anton from the Church of the Holy Family. “He would ask us how we were, what did we eat, did we have clean water, was anyone injured? It was never diplomatic or a matter of obligation. It was the questions a father would ask.”
Pope Francis made his final call to Gaza two days before his death. He passed away, aged 88, on April 21, Easter Monday.
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