How the next pope will be elected – what goes on at the conclave

THE CONVERSATION With the death of Pope Francis attention now turns to the selection of his successor The next pope will be chosen in what is called a conclave a Latin word meaning a room that can be locked up or more solely a closed room Members of the College of Cardinals will cast their votes behind the closed and locked doors of the Vatican s Sistine Chapel famous for its ceiling frescoes painted by Michelangelo Distinguished by their scarlet robes cardinals are chosen by each pope to elect future popes A cardinal must be under the age of to be eligible to vote in the conclave Of the members of the College of Cardinals are presently eligible to elect the new pope As a scholar of global Catholicism I am especially interested in how this will be the majority diverse conclave in the history of the Catholic Church For plenty of centuries the College of Cardinals was dominated by Europeans Italians in particular In fact the first time a non-European cardinal veritably cast a ballot in a conclave was only in the th century when Baltimore s archbishop James Gibbons voted in the papal voting process Now the College of Cardinals has members from over countries with Francis having appointed nearly of them Holding a conclave to elect a pope is a tradition that goes back centuries The practice was established in under Pope Gregory X in reaction to the chaos surrounding his own poll which lasted nearly three years The tradition is old but the results can be surprising as when Francis himself was elected in as the first non-European pope in almost years and the first Jesuit pope ever The conclave begins Before the conclave the College of Cardinals will meet in what are called general congregations to discuss issues facing the church These general congregations will also be an opportunity for new cardinals and those from distant geographical locations to get to know their fellow cardinals This can be a time for politicking In times past the politicking was rumored to include bribes for votes as was alleged in the referendum of Alexander VI a Borgia pope in Nowadays it is considered to be bad form and bad luck for a cardinal to lobby for himself as a candidate Buying votes by giving money or favors to cardinals is called simony and is against church law Two to three weeks after the papal funeral the conclave will begin The cardinals will first make a procession to the Sistine Chapel where electronic jamming devices will have been set up to prevent eavesdropping and Wi-Fi and cellphone use As they file into the chapel the cardinals will sing in Latin the hymn Come Holy Spirit They will then vow on a book of the Gospels to keep the conclave proceedings secret After these rituals the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations will say out loud in Latin Extra Omnes which means Everyone Out The doors of the Sistine Chapter will then be locked and the conclave will begin The voting process The cardinals electing the pope will be seated in order of rank Usually the dean of the College of Cardinals is seated in the first position But the current dean Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re is over the eligible voting age and will not participate in the conclave Instead this papal voting will be led by the Vatican s secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin When the cardinals have assembled nine will be chosen at random to run the balloting with three of them being scrutinizers who will examine the ballots and read them aloud After writing down the name of their chosen candidate the cardinals will bring their ballots to the front of the chapel and place them on a plate that is set on top of an urn in front of the scrutinizers Using the plate to drop their ballot into the urn they will say I call as my witness Christ the Lord who will be my judge that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected A new pope is elected by a two-thirds majority If this majority is not reached during the first ballot the ballots will be burned in a stove Black smoke rising through the Sistine Chapel s chimney will signal to the outside world that the vote is still ongoing a tradition that began with the polling of Benedict XV in Chemical additives are used to make sure the smoke is black because during the balloting of John Paul II there was confusion over the smoke s color Following the first day and on the days thereafter there will be up to four ballots a day if a two-thirds majority is not reached Both Benedict XVI and Francis were elected after relatively limited ballots four in the affair of Benedict five with Francis According to rules set by Benedict if a new pope is not chosen after days there will be a day of prayer and reflection Then the referendum will be between the top two candidates one of whom must receive a two-thirds majority This new rule specific commentators have suggested could lead to a longer or even deadlocked conclave because a compromise candidate is less likely to emerge The Room of Tears Conclaves are usually short such as the three-ballot voting process that chose Pope Pius XII in On a insufficient occasions deliberations have been quite long the longest being the papal conclave which elected Benedict XIV and lasted days But regardless of the time frame a new pope will be chosen Once a candidate receives enough votes he is required Do you accept your canonical balloting as Supreme Pontiff By saying Accepto or I accept he becomes the new leader of the Catholic Church This time the ballots will be burned to create white smoke that will tell the world that the conclave has ended and that a new pope has been chosen Forthwith after being elected the new pope decides on his name as Jorge Mario Bergoglio did when he was the first pope to choose the name Francis The choice of a name especially one of an immediate predecessor often indicates the direction of the new pope s pontificate In Francis circumstance his name honored St Francis of Assisi a th century mystic known for his simplicity and love for nature The new pope is then led to the Room of Tears In this chamber off the Sistine Chapel he will have moments to reflect on the burdens of his position which have often brought new popes to tears He will put on a white cassock and other signs of his office His voting will be communicated from the balcony of St Peter s Basilica From the balcony the new pope will greet the crowd below and deliver his first blessing to the world A new pontificate will have begun The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news analysis and commentary from academic experts The Conversation is wholly responsible for the content