The conclave begins

The world won’t know who the next pope will be until he appears before a throng of supporters in St. Peter’s Square.
 
Powerful members of the Catholic Church from around the world are gathering Wednesday for the centuriesold tradition of a conclave, a process that is part spiritual and part pragmatic.
 
For the first time since 2013, the College of Cardinals has convened in Vatican City to vote on a successor to Pope Francis, who died on April 21. The term “conclave,” dramatized in a 2024 Oscar-nominated film of the same name, comes from a Latin word for a “room that can be locked up.”
 
PBS News has been talking with experts on theology, history and law to answer some of the biggest questions about conclaves and what to expect.

This newsletter was compiled by Joshua Barajas.

By Dan Cooney
Social Media Producer/Coordinator
 
In the morning Mass before the conclave, the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, stressed the need for unity in the Catholic Church.
 
Re delivered that message to the 133 cardinals in attendance, hailing from 70 countries, before they proceeded inside to the Sistine Chapel to begin the election of a new pope.
 
How long will the conclave last?
 
The apostolic constitution lays out a schedule for voting until a new pope is chosen by a two-thirds majority of the ballots.
 
On the first day, the cardinals can take one vote in the afternoon. Then, the cardinals vote twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon on each successive day.
 
If a pope is not chosen after three days of voting, the cardinals suspend voting for up to one day “to allow a pause for prayer, informal discussion among the voters, and a brief spiritual exhortation” by a key cardinal.
 
While there are procedures in place if a conclave lasts longer than three days, don’t expect the 2025 conclave to stretch that far.

“I’ll be worried if it starts to be more than three days,” said Kathleen Sprows Cummings, a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame.
 
What was the longest conclave ever?
 
The longest papal election in history took more than two years in the late 1200s. It prompted reforms, including that the cardinals meet in conclave to elect a new pope.
 
Only twice in the 20th century did a conclave stretch for five days (1903 and 1922). In the 21st century, the 2005 and 2013 conclaves each lasted two days.
 
Who can vote in the election?
 
Cardinals are the senior-most clergy in the Catholic Church behind the pope.
 
Those under age 80 at the time of the papal vacancy are the only eligible electors in the conclave. One hundred and thirty-five of the Church’s 252 cardinals will be eligible to vote for the next pontiff in 2025, though two cardinals said they will not take part due to health reasons.
 
One cardinal overshadowed the proceedings before they even started. Cardinal Angelo Becciu recently asserted he had a right to participate in the conclave even after Francis forced him to resign his key Vatican position and his rights as a cardinal in 2020 over financial misconduct allegations.
 
But soon after, he reversed course, saying in a statement through his attorneys that “while remaining convinced of my innocence,” he has decided to obey Pope Francis’ will and not enter the conclave.
 
Who is eligible to become pope?
 
Any baptized Catholic male can be elected pope, regardless of whether they’re a member of the priesthood, according to canon law. The only requirement is that he must be ordained as a bishop upon accepting the election.
 
For the last 600-plus years, the College of Cardinals has picked one of their own. Expect the same outcome this time around, said the experts who spoke with PBS News.
 
Why are conclaves so secretive?

The rules of the conclave call on the cardinals to enlist “two trustworthy technicians” to ensure “no audiovisual equipment for recording or transmitting has been installed by anyone” in the Sistine Chapel or any adjacent areas. Meanwhile, the cardinals must “refrain from written correspondence and from all conversations, including those by telephone or radio,” with anyone outside the conclave.
 
Up until the early 20th century, Catholic monarchs asserted that they had the power to object to the cardinals’ choice for pope.
 
“They had cardinals who would represent their interests and could veto a selection,” said Charles J. Reid Jr., a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis.
 
Pope Pius X fully prohibited the practice in 1904.
 
“Ever since then, you’ve had this tremendous worry that someone could communicate inside the College of Cardinals and influence the outcome,” Reid said. “You want the outcome to be the pure working of the internal dynamics of the College of Cardinals.”
 
The secrecy of the process “is to help prevent, on the one hand, political and other entities having an influence as much as possible,” said Jeffrey Morrow, a professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, as well as “to emphasize for the faithful that this is a decision of the Holy Spirit, so that we don’t look at this too politically, we don’t over politicize it.”
 
Do ‘politics’ play a role in a conclave?
 
The cardinals are supposed to be influenced by the Holy Spirit to help discern who should be the next pope, Sprows Cummings said. That said, lobbying does take place during the general congregation meetings, dinners and cocktail hours that the cardinals host.
 
“I don’t want to say that politics aren’t a part of it,” Sprows Cummings said. “But I will say that politics aren’t supposed to be a part. … We don’t want to call it politics. They’re certainly not campaigning. But how they would pitch it is they’re marshaling support for the person they believe the Church needs now.”
 
In his 1996 apostolic constitution, John Paul II “earnestly” called on the cardinal electors “not to allow themselves to be guided … by friendship or aversion,” or to be influenced by their personal relationships, the media, “or by force, fear or the pursuit of popularity.”
 
How does voting work?
 
There’s no electronic voting in a papal election.
 
After each round of voting and once the paper ballots are cast and checked, they are burned. Smoke emerges from a chimney above the Sistine Chapel to signify that a round of voting has ended to the crowd waiting in St. Peter’s Square.

Want more news and analysis in your inbox?
Explore all of the PBS News' emails.