27 Things You Didn’t
Know About the Conclave
catholicsay.com
Here are some facts to beef up your
knowledge about one of the most important and intriguing institutions in the
Church: the conclave.
1. The first
conclave was held in 1276.
2. The smallest
conclave was also one of the longest. Starting in
mid-1277, just seven cardinals showed up for a conclave: four Italians and
three Frenchmen. The ensuing deadlock lasted six months and ended only when a
French prelate died. (Technically this may not have been a conclave, since the
pope who died before it suspended formal conclave rules. However, historian
Warren Carroll refers to it as a conclave. See below for more on the conclave
suspension.)
3. The longest
conclave lasted more than two years, an
estimated 851 days, if you count from the beginning to the end of the Council
of Constance which served as a special conclave of sorts. However, not all
historians agree on this point. If you don’t count the council, the longest
official conclave was 28 months, between May 1, 1314 and August 7, 1316. After
that, the next longest was 183 days in 1740.
4. Many mainstream
news outlets are erroneously reporting that the longest
and the first conclave was in 1271 when a nearly three-year standstill at the
Italian town of Viterbo so frustrated town officials that they locked the cardinals
in a palace, hence the original of the word conclave, derived from the Latin
phrase meaning with key. But the conclave
as a formal institution was established in response to this fiasco, its name
inspired by the solution that eventually had presented itself. The formal
establishment was in 1274, at the Second Council of Lyons by Pope Gregory X.
5. Formal conclave
rules were suspended months after the first one was held, by
Pope John XX. For nearly two decades popes were elected without strictly
following conclave procedures until Celestine V restored the institution in
1294.
6. According to
one tally, there have been 73 conclaves since 1294, not
counting the one happening now.
7. Not all
conclaves have been in Rome or Italy. Outside of Rome,
other Italian cities have hosted conclaves, including Venice, Perugia, and
Naples. Six conclaves have been in France and one was in Constance, Germany in
1417.
8. The conclave in
Constance is also the last one in which
non-cardinals participated.
9. Originally
cardinals slept in a communal room. That later changed
to cells. Today cardinals have rooms assigned to them by lot in the Domus Sanctae
Marthae, a guest house in Vatican City.
10. Sfumata is the technical,
Latin word for the smoke that signals the outcome of balloting.
11. How the smoke
is colored black or white remains something
of a mystery, although it is believed special chemicals are used in the
process.
12. Any male
Catholic, hypothetically speaking, could be
elected Pope. While this seems extremely unlikely, it has happened. Pope
Gregory X was neither a bishop nor a priest when he was chosen. Under the
current rules, however, anyone elected pope who is not already a bishop must be
immediately ordained to the episcopate.
13. All the popes
elected since 1389, however, have been cardinals.
14. The
doorkeeper: Every detail of the conclave is highly
scripted. The current governing document, Universi Dominici
Gregis, even specifies who is to shut the door to
the Sistine Chapel once voting begins: the junior Cardinal Deacon.
15. Special
offices for cardinals in the conclave: Before voting
commences, cardinals are selected by lot to three offices—the Scrutineers, the Infirmarii, and the Revisers.
There are three persons chosen for each office.
16. Scrutineers count the ballots.
17. Infirmarii collect ballots
from any cardinals who happen to fall ill during the conclave and remain in
their quarters.
18. Revisers double check the
work of the Scrutineers.
19. Two medical
doctors must be available to the cardinals
participating in the conclave. They too must take an oath to keep secret
anything they hear about goings-on within the Sistine Chapel.
20. Ballot paper
specifications. Conclave rules require the following of
the ballot paper: it has to be rectangular, capable of being folded in two,
and, on the upper half bear the wordsEligo in Summum Pontificem, Latin
for, “I elect as Supreme Pontiff."
21. Handwriting
guidelines: Cardinals must write down the name of
their choice “legibly" but they must also disguise their handwriting so
that it is not clearly recognizable as their own.
22. Needle in the
ballots: As each ballot is read out by a
Scrutineer, he pierces it with a needle, which goes through the word Eligo. The ballots are
all threaded together and the ends are twisted into a knot after all the
ballots have been counted, according to current conclave guidelines.
23. Ballots aren’t
the only things burned. Any notes the cardinals have made
during the process are thrown into the fire too.
24. Cardinals
can’t watch the news, listen to the radio, or even read
newspapers or magazines during the conclave.
25. Two oaths: You may have seen
the cardinals taking an oath to follow the rules and observe strict
secrecy regarding the deliberations of the conclave. They also take a second
oath each time they approach the altar to drop off their ballots. The second
oath reads as follows: I call as my witness Christ the Lord
who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I think
should be elected.
26. A cardinal can
legally break silence about a conclave after the fact only if
given express permission by the new Pope.
27. Voting records from each session
are otherwise kept in a sealed envelope—only to be opened if the Pope allows
it.
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Luther Wrote, that Caused Him to go against The Catholic Church
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Roman Catholic Popes Evil Behavior
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