Electing A New Pope — Who And What Comes Next?

And why does it matter? “Conclave,” the 2024 Oscar-winning film that follows a group of cardinals who are summoned to Rome for a papal conclave tasked with finding the new pope now appears semi-prophetic with the death of the “progressive” Pope Francis.

The event, steeped in tradition, centers around an elaborate and highly secretive ballot process.

While “Conclave,” which is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, takes the real-life process of how the Catholic Church chooses a new pope and embellishes it, it still provides timely insights into how the Church will elect the next pastor of the world’s largest Christian flock.

And in a chaotic and dangerous world in what often appears to be perpetual decay, it matters. The pope determines the spiritual, moral and ideological direction the church will take for years and even decades to come.

The passing of the pope now sets in motion a series of centuries-old processes, including a nine-day mourning period, an elaborate burial and the election of a new pope.

But first let’s note that reform-minded Pope Francis broke tradition even in death by foregoing the century-old practice of being interred in the Vatican Grottoes beneath St. Peter’s, when he chose to be laid to rest inside the west wing of the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, in Rome, one of the city’s four major papal basilicas and a site deeply significant to him throughout his papacy.

In his last testament, dated June 29, 2022, the liberal-leaning Francis asked for his tomb to be located “in the niche of the side nave between the Pauline Chapel (Chapel of the Salus Populi Romani) and the Sforza Chapel.”

This makes him the first pope in over a century to be buried outside the Vatican. His funeral will take place on Saturday, April 26.

Pope Francis also recently approved plans to make the whole traditional papal funeral procedure less complex. Again, breaking with long-standing tradition, Francis has chosen a simpler path for his burial. Unlike his predecessors, who were laid to rest in three nested coffins, Francis will be buried in a plain wooden coffin lined with zinc.

He has also done away with the custom of placing the Pope’s body on a raised platform, or catafalque, in St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing. Instead, mourners will have the chance to pay their respects while his body lies in an open coffin, without the traditional display.

At the end of the funeral process, a new leader of the Catholic church will be selected in a high-stakes election dramatized in “Conclave,” with progressive and conservative cardinals vying for control of an institution with 1.4 billion followers globally.

Papal conclave, coming from a Latin noun dating back to ancient Rome and meaning a locked room, are notoriously difficult to predict because the election process is shrouded in total secrecy. Of the 252 members of College of Cardinals, 135 are under the age of 80, which makes them eligible to vote.

Voting takes place in the Sistine Chapel, which is thoroughly swept for surveillance devices beforehand, then locked and sealed once the cardinals are inside.

In each voting round, electors write their chosen candidate’s name on a slip of paper and place it into a silver urn, declaring “before God” that they have followed their conscience. The votes are then counted and read aloud, revealing the leading contenders and the extent of their support.

This process continues until one candidate receives a two-third’s majority. After every round, the ballots are burned – black smoke from the chimney signals no decision has been reached, while white smoke announces the election of a new pope.

At times the smoke accidentally comes out looking sort of gray, confusing everyone. But in the end a new pope emerges.

After 12 years of liberal and often controversial moves by Francis, experts say there is no single frontrunner to be the next Pope, but several names have been cited as indications of which direction the Church might take.

Guesses about who the next pope will be often prove inaccurate. Before the selection of Pope Francis in 2013, many bookmakers had not even counted him among the frontrunners.

This time, predictions are further complicated because Francis made many appointments in a relatively short amount of time during his tenure (some said he packed the College of Cardinals to continue his legacy) making it harder to identify movements and factions within the group.

Still, as Time reports, “experts suggest it’ll be as difficult to predict as Francis’ own election was.”

Time adds:

“The history of the papacy of many hundreds of years suggests it’s very difficult for a Pope to control the election that follows his own death,” Miles Pattenden, a historian of the Catholic Church at Oxford University tells TIME. Cardinals are “their own men,” and even those picked by Francis may have their own opinions.

“It’s very simplistic to say cardinals just vote along ideological lines as though they’re part of political parties,” Pattenden says. “That’s not how the Vatican works.”

Pattenden also points to an Italian proverb: “After a fat Pope comes a thin one.”

“The idea of that is essentially that the cardinals very often focus on what they didn’t like about the previous Pope, all the things they thought were his faults and flaws, and they look for someone who remedies those.” The first question on cardinals’ minds will be whether they want change or continuity.

But another expert quoted by Time reinforces my concern that the next pope will be as liberal or more so than Francis:

Carlos Eire, a professor of history and religious studies at Yale University, however, thinks it’s likely that those Francis appointed will indeed lean ideologically left, noting that Francis did not appoint many conservative bishops to the College of Cardinals and that, while geographic diversity was a priority of his, theological diversity was not. Francis, for example, appointed American Robert McElroy in 2022, who is known for his advocacy on immigration and the environment and inclusion of LGBTQ+ Catholics, while reportedly bypassing more conservative archbishops. “When it comes to religious issues,” says Eire, “it is also highly likely that they will lean away from traditionalism.”

However, there remains hope that a more traditional and conservative pontiff may be elected to balance out some of Francis’ more liberal moves. More to come.

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