This week, members of the College of Cardinals of the Catholic Church will perform their most important function, which is to elect a new pope. The election takes place during what is called a “conclave,” which comes from the Latin words, con and clavis, which literally means “with key,” referring to a room with a door that can be locked. The word became part of the Church’s lexicon after the election of Pope Gregory X in 1271, which took a whopping two years and nine months. The delay was caused by tactics employed by different factions intended to either facilitate or block the election of a French pope. After the eventual election of Gregory X (an Italian), the new pope issued rules governing future elections, designed to prevent the recurrence of such a fiasco. According to the new set of rules, the cardinals were to be sequestered under lock and key, forbidden to leave until they had elected a new pope. Meals would be provided to them through a hole in the wall. After three days of deliberation, their food rations would be reduced to one meal per day. After eight days they would receive only bread and water. Finally, for the duration of the voting, they would not receive their normal income from the papal treasury. Despite these measures, over the subsequent 150 years there were two other conclaves that lasted more than 2 years due to enduring tensions between French and Italian prelates. Happily, no conclave since the year 1900 has gone longer than 4 days.
While a cardinal’s most important function is to elect a new pope, not every cardinal is eligible to vote in a conclave. In 1970, Pope Paul VI, who had succeeded Pope John XXIII in 1963, changed the rules, granting voting rights only to cardinals under the age of 80. Back in seminary, one of my professors told a (possibly apocryphal) story to our class about why Paul VI thought this change was necessary. He said that after Paul VI’s election a member of the college of cardinals well into his 90s emerged from the conclave, excitedly shaking hands with everyone he encountered. When asked by the Italian media whom he had voted for, the senile prelate enthusiastically told them he “voted for Pacelli.” He was referring of course to Eugenio Pacelli, better known as His Holiness Pius XII, who had been elected pope in 1939 and had been at that point dead for over 5 years.
In the 2005 conclave it quickly became apparent among the voters that Joseph Ratzinger would be the successor to John Paul II. For years, Ratzinger had been hoping to leave the service of John Paul in Rome to return to his native Germany to live quietly as a retired theologian. But then he saw the voting turn in his favor. “So, with deep conviction, I told the Lord, ‘Don’t do this to me! You have younger and better men who can do this work.” Yet, he accepted the will of his brother cardinals. After vesting in the small chamber called the “room of tears,” where for centuries newly elected popes have first put on the white cassock, Ratzinger emerged on the loggia as Benedict XVI. Indeed, the burdens of the Petrine Office are great. So, we must pray for the cardinal-electors, that they discern well the will of God and choose a wise and holy man to shepherd the Church in the years ahead.
posted 5/3/25
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 