Wednesday, May, 7 2025, will be the start of the process to choose the new pope.
Eligible to vote are the cardinal-electors, that is those in the College (from the Latin com, together, and legare, to choose) of Cardinals (from the Latin cardinalis, principal) who were under the age of 80 when the pope died.
Today, there are 135 cardinal-electors out of the 252 members of the College of Cardinals.
The election is called the papal conclave (from the Latin com, with, and clavis, key), a term referring to the earlier tradition of locking the cardinals into small cells in the Vatican Palace so that no one (such as the Holy Roman Emperor, or the kings of France or Spain) could interfere in the process.
A change was introduced in 1492 when the papal conclave that elected Rodrigo Borgia as Pope Alexander VI was held in the Sistine Chapel. They have been held there ever since.
Papal conclaves don’t run to a fixed schedule. They can drag on for years or be over in a matter of hours.
The longest-lasting one began in November 1268, upon the death of Pope Clement IV.
It took place in Viterbo (near Rome) because that was where Clement IV had died.The conclave ended in September 1271.
Pressure had seemed to be the only way to get an outcome. A strategy was devised. The cardinals were locked in, their rations were reduced to bread and water, and at a certain point, even the roof of Viterbo’s Palazzo dei Papi, site of the conclave, was removed.
Matters became particularly confusing in the following century.
During what is known as the Western Schism, 1378 to 1417, the Catholic Church had two bishops claiming to be pope.
One resided in Rome, the other in Avignon, which was a papal enclave where the popes had resided since 1309.
In 1377, the last Avignon pope, Pope Gregory IX, left Avignon for Rome and died there in 1378.
The split of the Catholic Church led to Urban VI being elected in Rome as Gregory IX’s successor, while Clement VII was elected in Avignon. Both claimed to be the true pope.
In 1409, at the Council of Pisa, the two rivals were declared illegitimate, and a third pope entered the scene. He’s gone down in history as the Antipope John XXIII.
The situation was resolved, finally, at the Council of Constance (1414 to 1418), which resulted in the renunciation of both the Roman pope and the Pisan antipope and the excommunication of the Avignon antipope.
Pope Martin V was legitimately elected, and the schism was over. The papacy was now firmly back in Rome.
The shortest conclave occurred at the beginning of the sixteenth century with the election of Giuliano della Rovere as Pope Julius II on 31 October 1503.
He succeeded Francesco Piccolomini, who had been elected Pope Pius III on 22 September 1503 but died on 18 October, having reigned for just over three weeks.
It had taken the cardinals about ten hours to agree that Giuliano della Rovere would be the new pope.
In 2013, the conclave that elected Pope Francis sat for 28 hours. How long will it be this time before we see the black smoke issuing from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel and hear the words “Habemus papam”?
The cardinal-electors are forbidden any contact with the outside world during this period.
No electronic devices are permitted. That means no internet, no social media, no chat groups.
I hope that the conclave will last long enough to show us that we can get along very well without needing to know (and have) everything immediately.
Patience is an acquired skill that can serve us well in life. There seems to be not enough of it around at the moment.
Sabine Eiche is a local writer and art historian with a PhD from Princeton University. Her passions are writing for children and protecting nature. Her columns deal with a broad range of topics and often include etymology in order to shed extra light on the subject.
📣 Got an opinion on this story or any others in Richmond? Send us a letter or email your thoughts or story tips to [email protected].
📲 To stay updated on Richmond news, sign up for our daily headline newsletter.
💬 Words missing in article? Your adblocker might be preventing hyperlinked text from appearing.
