Fr Kevin Athaide gives his historic input about curiosities of electing a new pope
It seems obvious from the recent media activity following the death of our Holy Father Francis that the office and role of the bishop of Rome, one of the oldest human institutions still in operation, still fascinates a wide spectrum of people. And the subject of that curiosity includes the ‘con-clave’ system by which the Successor of the Apostle S. Peter has been elected for centuries, and whose arcane procedures and atmosphere of secrecy is bound to sell popular novels and films. Rarely do we see a crowd of men in the cardinatial scarlet in the news-media, but they are everywhere during these important days. So, let’s have a quick look at the means by which the new pope is to be elected.
Following the death of the Holy Father and the summons to the college of Cardinals by the dean of that college, and even before the funeral, the general meetings begin to make preparations for the conclave itself. Two weeks after the death of the Holy Father or very soon afterwards, the Cardinal electors offer Mass together at the basilica of S. Peter in Rome and then process into the Sixtine chapel of the palace of the popes, the locale of the conclave since about 1880. This chapel will have been retro-fitted with new furniture to enable the work of the Cardinal electors, including the voting tables and the wonderful stove where items like the ballot papers are burned (in the interests of secrecy) and which produces the famous black and white smoke which eventually proclaims to the outside world the end of the election. There follows what many hope will be a short time before one of the Cardinals secures election as the new pope by a two-thirds majority vote made by his peers, which could take a few days or a few weeks, and exceptionally even a few months. The dean of the college of Cardinals then approaches the newly-elected to receive his acceptance of the election, by which acceptance he becomes at once the bishop of Rome, with full authority over the universal Church. The following are a few interesting anecdotes about the election of the Successor of S. Peter.
There wasn’t always a sophisticated voting system for the election, and it is never an easy choice. The twentieth bishop of Rome was neither a priest nor a deacon and, during a particularly difficult decision about a new papacy, happened to be in Rome for the election of the new pope, after the death of Anterus, who had served for only about a year. The early church historian Eusebius explains how a dove landed upon Fabian's head; he must have been well enough known to everyone in the Holy City, for the descent of the dove was apparently interpreted by both clergy and laity present alike as a oracle. Fabian was rapidly advanced through the required clerical grades and elected pope in AD 236.
It would seem that the dove knew what it was about. Fabian was said to be a good administrator and improved the organisation of the Church in Rome. Although his pontificate began in relative peace, this was still a time when the Church was intermittently targeted for persecution by the Roman emperors. The emperor Decius soon required Roman citizens to respect the traditional religion of the Romans, and for this to be certified by magistrates. Facing imprisonment and likely execution, many Christians capitulated, others fled. The Holy Father S. Fabian and others gave their lives for Christ and His Church.
The contest for the papacy has been, more often than not, a political issue since the medieval and into the early modern period, with the interests of the developing nation states in Europe entering into the evolving conclave system. There was a period of several decades in the fourteenth century when the office of the pope was transferred by the French king from Rome to firmly within his grasp at Avignon, which produced a line of French popes. Following the death of the last of those Avignon popes - the Holy Father Gregory XI (AD 1370-1378) - who had returned to Rome at last, a mob of several thousand Romans stormed the conclave to prevent the election of another French pope, who could possibly return the papacy to Avignon. Under pressure, the Cardinal electors elected the wretchedly tyrannical Urban VI (AD 1378-1389), which led to several cardinals to independently elect a rival antipope in Clement VII. This in turn caused the so-called Great Schism (1378-1417), which at one point featured as many as one pope and two anti-popes, ruining the unity of the Church and possibly adding fuel to the rebellions that coalesced into the protestant movement of the following century.
Politics also arrived when the Holy Father Clement VIII died in AD 1605, and factional disputes had opposed the French interest to the Spanish interest. At first, the papal chamberlain Cardinal Aldobrandini and supported by the French cardinals (and so the French king Henry IV) contrived to have Cesare Cardinal Baronius elected. Meanwhile the Spanish king Philip III wished to prevent both Cardinal Baronius and Baronius’ preferred Cardinal de Medici of Florence from being elected. Cardinal de Medici was elected and became Leo XI, but died less than a month later. At the second conclave of the year, the only recorded injury at a conclave took place when Baronius opposed the election of Domenico Cardinal Toschi, and a fist fight took place, which resulted in the elderly Alfonso Cardinal Visconti breaking a few bones in the scuffle. A compromise candidate, Camillo Cardinal Borghese was eventually elected as Paul V (AD 1605-1621).
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The political power-play was already evident following the death of the Holy Father Clement IV in AD 1268, and a French candidate was opposed to a German candidate in the election. The pope had died in Viterbo, which was a fortified town often used by the popes, and this became the scene of an excessively prolonged election of his successor. Following almost three years of indecision, and the pleading of the French king Philippe III that a decision be made, the great Franciscan S. Bonaventura counselled the frustrated residents of Viterbo to lock the Cardinals away for the first time (con clave, ‘with a key’) within the episcopal palace, to expedite the election. Such things had already been attempted in Perugia (AD 1216) and Rome (AD 1241), but it didn’t work this time.
The premiers of the city, Albert de Montebono and Raniero Galli, decided to take things further and had the roof of the building removed, and rationed the Cardinal electors down to bread and water. The monastic austerity thus imposed upon the Cardinals led them to offer the papacy to S. Philippe Beniti, master general of the Servite Order, who promptly fled to the mountains until another choice could be made. The archdeacon of Liège, Theobald de Visconti, was elected and took the name of Gregory X, who proceeded to formalise the conclave arrangement of Viterbo with his bull Ubi periculum (1274).
This was quite possibly the second conclave of the year AD 1503, when the Holy Father Julius II was elected in less than ten hours. Following the death of the Holy Father Alexander VI (1492-1503), the factions were based on the interests of the Spanish, the French and the Italians, while Rome was under stress from the military presence of both the French and the Spanish outside the Holy City. The first conclave had set aside the French candidate, Georges d’Amboise, to elect Francesco Cardinal Piccolomini as Pius III, but he was already quite ill and, when he died about a month later, the cardinals coming together for a second time must have been weary and acted quickly. The ambitious Giuliano della Rovere, a nephew of the Holy Father Sixtus IV (AD1471-1484), cultivated support for himself among the Cardinal electors, was elected and chose the name Julius II. Aside from being a great political leader, this pope became a great patron of the arts, commissioning the elaborate painted decoration of the Sixtine chapel by the great Michelangelo, and in this way he haunts the modern conclaves, which take place in that chapel.
It is sometimes thought that the election of the Successor of S. Peter is a divine choice. Surprisingly, we instead find a very strong human element as we study the history of the papacy, and this rather short article on the conclaves has focused rather heavily on the political influences that are brought to bear. I thought that I would end with the rather shocking election of the Borgia pope Alexander VI (AD 1492-1503), to encourage us to pray hard for wisdom be granted from on high to the Cardinal Fathers making the election next week.
The conclave of 1492 followed the death of the Holy Father Innocent VIII (AD 1484-1492) was the first to be held in the Sixtine chapel of the papal palace on the Vatican hill, and it like every other one mentioned above was influenced by the wealthy, and by political and family alliances. The French king Charles VIII and the Catholic kings of Spain made their presence felt and, although every precaution was taken to regulate the election of the pope, the ambitious Rodrigo Cardinal Borgia practically bought the election out with his own means, using bribery and blatant promises of wealth, all of it carefully documented by the conclave’s master of ceremonies, Johann Burchard.
We sometimes laughingly toss around the quote attributed to a cardinal when the French statesman Napoleon claimed to have the power to destroy the Catholic Church. The cardinal apparently replied that the Catholic clergy had themselves tried their best to do that, but had failed to, and so would he. God our Lord would have known what would happen when He entrusted the government of His Church to men, and so poured precious wine into earthen vessels. But He chose to do so nevertheless and, while we rejoice in all the good popes we have known and loved and the great ones that have preceded them in every age of the Church, we could peer through the dust of history to the fisherman in his boat who fell to his knees before the Holy One and said, ‘Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.’ Upon him and his Successors as her foundation stands Holy Church.
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