Patrick Hudson
The conclave to elect Pope Francis’ successor will begin on May 7, the Vatican announced.
On Monday, the fifth Congregation of Cardinals since the Pope’s death agreed the date to start the election of his successor. The more than 180 cardinals present also heard around 20 of their number speak on “themes of particular relevance for the future of the Church”, according to a statement. This followed his funeral on Saturday and the start of the novendiales, nine days of official mourning for a pope.
The conclave will begin with a Mass in St Peter’s, after which the cardinal electors will process into the Sistine Chapel. They do not include cardinals aged over 80 at the time of the Pope’s death, though they may take part in the preceding congregations.
Each will take an oath, pledging if elected to fulfil the Munus Petrinum (the Petrine mission to the universal Church) and swearing secrecy about the election. They will be sequestered in the apostolic palace and the Casa Santa Marta guesthouse, where the late Pope lived, for the duration.
The first vote will take place that afternoon, with two votes each morning and each evening for the next three days. If no candidate has a two-thirds majority by this point, the process may be suspended for up to a day of prayer and free discussion between electors, including an address by the senior cardinal-deacon, the third of the three orders of cardinals.
There may be a further pause after seven further inconclusive ballots, with an address by the senior cardinal-priest, and another after seven more, with an address by the senior cardinal-bishop. After seven more inconclusive ballots, only the two leading candidates from the last are eligible in the next, though still requiring a two-thirds majority.
Preaching at a Mass in St Peter’s Square on Sunday for the second of the novendiales, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the disciples’ feelings after Jesus’ death – “orphaned, alone, lost, threatened and helpless” – also reflected “the state of mind of all of us, of the Church, and of the entire world” since Francis died.
“The shepherd whom the Lord gave to his people, Pope Francis, has ended his earthly life and has left us,” said Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state until the Pope’s death terminated the appointment. Since Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, is 91, Cardinal Parolin presides at the assembly of cardinal electors as the senior cardinal-bishop aged under 80.
“The grief at his departure, the sense of sadness that assails us, the turmoil we feel in our hearts, the sense of bewilderment: we are experiencing all of this, like the apostles grieving over the death of Jesus,” he said.
That afternoon, the cardinals who have gathered in Rome since Francis’ death visited his tomb in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. The former head of the Italian bishops’ conference Cardinal Gualtiero Basseti told Corriere della Sera there was a “fraternal atmosphere” among those of the 252 cardinals present in the city.
“I really think that the conclave can offer a beautiful testimony in this world full of war, division and rancour,” he said. “Certainly, there may be some difficulty because there have never been so many electors and not everyone knows each other.”
While 53 of the 135 cardinals eligible to vote are Europeans, a larger proportion are from Africa, Asia and Latin America than in any previous conclave. The Bishop of Stockholm Cardinal Lars Anders Arborelius OCD told reporters this election could take longer than others “because we don’t know each other”, though the Archbishop of Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx said he expected it to last “just a few days”.
Two of the electors, Kenya’s Cardinal John Njue and Spain’s Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, said they would not attend the conclave due to health concerns. Both are 79-years-old, though Cardinal Njue was previously reported to be over 80 until the 2024 Annuario Pontificio recorded his birthday as Jan 1 1946. In September last year, the Archdiocese of Nairobi issued a public denial of reports that he was dead.
Cardinal Vinko Puljić, the 79-year-old former Archbishop of Sarajevo, was also expected to miss the conclave due to health concerns and missed the Pope’s funeral. However, it was reported last week that his doctors had given him permission to travel to Rome.
The 76-year-old Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, the former sostituto of the Secretariat of State, or papal chief of staff, will not take part in the conclave. He was forced to resign his rights and privileges as cardinal in 2020 during an investigation of financial crime in the curia, and was convicted of embezzlement in a Vatican trial.
After Francis’ death last week, Becciu claimed he was entitled to participate as the Pope had expressed “no explicit will to exclude me from the conclave nor a request for my explicit renunciation in writing” and had even intended to restore his privileges.
Following reports that Cardinal Parolin claimed to possess two letters signed by Pope Francis confirming that Becciu should be excluded from the conclave, he was not expected to participate though the Vatican was yet to confirm the full list of cardinal electors.
Were Becciu excluded, alongside the absence of Njue and Cañizares, there would be 133 electors, making 89 votes the threshold for a two-thirds majority. – The Tablet
