Conclave

A conclave is a gathering of the College of Cardinals convened to appoint the pope of the Catholic Church. Catholics consider the pope to be the apostolic successor of Saint Peter and the earthly head of the Catholic Church.

Concerns around political interference led to reforms after the interregnum of 1268–1271 and Pope Gregory X's decree during the Second Council of Lyons in 1274 that the cardinal electors should be locked in seclusion cum clave (Latin for 'with a key') and not permitted to leave until a new pope had been elected. Conclaves are now held in the Sistine Chapel of the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City.

From the Apostolic Age until 1059, the pope, like other bishops, was chosen by the consensus of the clergy (priests and deacons) and laity of the diocese. In 1059, the body of electors was more precisely defined, when the College of Cardinals was designated the sole body of electors. Since then, other details of the procedures have developed. In 1970, Pope Paul VI limited the electors to cardinals under 80 years of age in Ingravescentem aetatem. The current procedures established by Pope John Paul II in Universi Dominici gregis were slightly amended in 2007 and 2013 by Pope Benedict XVI.

A two-thirds supermajority vote is required to elect the new pope.

Historical development

The procedures for the election of the pope developed over almost two millennia. Until the College of Cardinals was created in 1059, the bishops of Rome, like those in other areas, were elected by acclamation of the local clergy and people. Procedures similar to the present system were introduced in 1274 when Gregory X promulgated Ubi periculum following the action of the magistrates of Viterbo during the interregnum of 1268–1271.

The process was further refined by Gregory XV with his 1621 papal bull Aeterni Patris Filius, which established the requirement of a two-thirds majority of cardinal electors to elect a pope. The Third Council of the Lateran had initially set the requirement that two-thirds of the cardinals were needed to elect a pope in 1179. This requirement had varied since then, depending on whether the winning candidate was allowed to vote for himself, in which cases the required majority was two-thirds plus one vote. Aeterni Patris Filius prohibited this practice and established two-thirds as the standard needed for election.

Aeterni Patris Filius did not eliminate the possibility of election by acclamation, but did require that a secret ballot take place first before a pope could be elected. Prior to 1621, a cardinal could vote for himself, but it was always with the knowledge and consent of enough of the other voting cardinals, so that he did not make the final decision to make himself pope (accessus). Ballots were either signed or initialed in the corner of the ballot, or sometimes coded and numbered.

Electorate

As early Christian communities emerged, they elected bishops, chosen by the clergy and laity with the assistance of the bishops of neighbouring dioceses. Cyprian (died 258) says that Pope Cornelius (in office 251–253) was chosen as bishop of Rome "by the decree of God and of His Church, by the testimony of nearly all the clergy, by the college of aged bishops [sacerdotum], and of good men". As in other dioceses, the clergy of the Diocese of Rome was the electoral body for the bishop of Rome. Instead of casting votes, the bishop was selected by general consensus or by acclamation. The candidate was then submitted to the people for their general approval or disapproval. This lack of precision in the election procedures occasionally gave rise to rival popes or antipopes.

The right of the laity to reject the person elected was abolished by a synod held in the Lateran in 769, but restored to Roman noblemen by Pope Nicholas I during a synod of Rome in 862. The pope was also subjected to oaths of loyalty to the Holy Roman emperor, who had the duty of providing security and public peace in Rome. A major change came in 1059, when Pope Nicholas II decreed in In nomine Domini that the cardinals were to elect a candidate to take office after receiving the assent of the clergy and laity. The cardinal bishops were to meet first and discuss the candidates before summoning the cardinal priests and cardinal deacons for the actual vote. The Second Council of the Lateran in 1139 removed the requirement for obtaining the assent of the lower clergy and the laity, while the Third Council of the Lateran in 1179 gave equal rights to the entire College of Cardinals when electing a new pope.

Through much of the Middle Ages and Renaissance the Catholic Church had only a small number of cardinals at any one time, as few as seven under either Pope Alexander IV (1254–1261) or Pope John XXI (1276–1277). The difficulty of travel further reduced the number arriving at conclaves. The small electorate magnified the significance of each vote and made it all but impossible to displace familial or political allegiances. Conclaves lasted months and even years. In his 1274 decree requiring the electors be locked in seclusion, Gregory X also limited each cardinal elector to two servants and rationed their food progressively when a conclave reached its fourth and ninth days.

The cardinals disliked these rules; Pope Adrian V temporarily suspended them in 1276 and John XXI's Licet felicis recordationis revoked them later that same year. Lengthy elections resumed and continued to be the norm until 1294, when Pope Celestine V reinstated the 1274 rules. Long interregna followed: in 1314–1316 during the Avignon Papacy, where the original conclaves were dispersed by besieging mercenaries and not reconvened for almost two years; and in 1415–1417, as a result of the Western Schism.

Until 1899, it was a regular practice to generally include a few lay members in the Sacred College. These were often prominent nobility, or monks who were not priests, and in all cases, celibacy was required. With the death of Teodolfo Mertel in 1899, this practice was ended. In 1917, the Code of Canon Law promulgated that year, explicitly stated that all cardinals must be priests. Since 1962, all cardinals have been bishops, with the exception of a few priests who have been made cardinals since about 1970. These few have all been at least 80 years old and not allowed to vote in a papal election, since Paul VI in that same year of 1970 imposed the rule that all voting cardinals be under 80 years of age. If a priest is asked by the pope to become a cardinal he may request not to be ordained a bishop, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

In 1587, Pope Sixtus V limited the number of cardinals to 70, following the precedent of Moses who was assisted by 70 elders in governing the Children of Israel: 6 cardinal bishops, 50 cardinal priests, and 14 cardinal deacons. Beginning with the attempts of Pope John XXIII (1958–1963) to broaden the representation of nations in the College of Cardinals, that number has increased. In 1970 Paul VI ruled that cardinals who reach the age of 80 before the start of a conclave are ineligible to participate.

In 1975, he limited the number of cardinal electors to 120. Though this remains the theoretical limit, all of his successors have exceeded it for short periods of time. John Paul II (in office 1978–2005) made a slight change to the age limit rules, barring cardinals 80 or older from serving as electors if they reach that age before the papacy becomes vacant. This change eliminated the possibility of scheduling a conclave to include or exclude a cardinal who might be close to the limit. The 2025 papal conclave was the first time that more than 120 cardinal-electors participated, at 133.

Choice of electors and of candidates

Originally, lay status did not bar election to the See of Rome. Bishops of dioceses were sometimes elected while still catechumens, such as the case of St. Ambrose, who became bishop of Milan in 374. In the wake of the violent dispute over the 767 election of Antipope Constantine II, Pope Stephen III held the synod of 769, which decreed that only a cardinal priest or cardinal deacon could be elected, specifically excluding those that are already bishops. Church practice deviated from this rule as early as 817 and fully ignored it from 882 with the election of Pope Marinus I, the bishop of Caere.

Nicholas II, in the synod of 1059, formally codified existing practice by decreeing that preference was to be given to the clergy of Rome, but leaving the cardinal bishops free to select a cleric from elsewhere if they so decided. The Lateran Council of 1179 rescinded these restrictions on eligibility. On 15 February 1559, Paul IV issued the papal bull Cum ex apostolatus officio, a codification of the ancient Catholic law that only Catholics can be elected popes, to the exclusion of non-Catholics, including former Catholics who have become public and manifest heretics.