What is the process for choosing a new Pope?

At 88 years of age, Pope Francis I was the second-oldest Pope to hold the title in the last 600 years. Only Leo XIII, who died aged 93 in 1903, outlived him. His death triggers the election of the 267th Pope, a process known as a conclave.

In the days after the Pope dies, eligible cardinals make their way to Rome to vote by secret ballot in the conclave, which has been held in the Sistine Chapel since 1878.

Cardinals can vote up to the age of 80. There are not supposed to be more than 120 so-called Cardinal-electors, according to a ruling by Pope Paul VI in 1975, but it has not been strictly followed. Last December, Pope Francis created 21 new Cardinals, and there are now about 140 of voting age.

Paper ballots are handed out, and each Cardinal writes the name of his chosen candidate below the words “Eligo in Summun Pontificem” (Latin for “I elect as supreme pontiff”). Unlike politicians, Cardinals cannot vote for themselves.

During the conclave, Cardinals offer sermons on the state of the world and the church, which indicates what qualities the next Pope should have, says Megan Armstrong, a professor at McMaster University who specializes in early modern Catholicism.

“Whoever’s chosen pope, what we see is they’ve been paying attention to what’s going on in the Church itself and the state of the world at the time,” she said.

“They’re weighing in what direction the church should be.”

Armstrong said the college of cardinals is split between progressives and conservatives.

Francis, with his relatively liberal views of same-sex marriage and divorce, was seen as being in favour of a “listening church,” responsive to the concerns of the people. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, was seen as more traditional.

“We’re dealing with a very interesting moment. We’ll see the temperature of the Church by who’s chosen,” Armstrong said.

There’s no limit. After the votes are counted, if no one has a two-thirds majority, the ballots are mixed with chemicals — potassium perchlorate, anthracene and sulphur (which used to be called brimstone) — and burned to create black smoke, which tells those outside the Vatican that no Pope has been chosen.

In that case, the process repeats. Up to four votes a day can be held for up to four days in a row. The fifth day is then reserved for prayer and discussion, and then voting resumes.

If a two-thirds majority is reached, the ballots are burned with potassium chlorate, lactose and rosin. The resultant white smoke signals “Habemus papam,” Latin for “We have a Pope.”

One of the longest conclaves in history was held from May 1, 1314, to Aug. 7, 1316, resulting in the election of Pope John XXII. In contrast, Pope Francis was elected after just four ballots stretching over two days in 2013.

There are only two rules, but they disqualify a lot of people. You must be Roman Catholic and you must be male. But since 1379, every Pope has also come from the College of Cardinals, the same small group that votes at the conclave.

Canada has five Cardinals, four of voting age: Frank Leo, Michael Czerny, Gerald Cyprien LaCroix and Thomas Christopher Collins, as well as Marc Ouellet, who turned 80 last year.

No. He could have chosen to resign. In fact, in 2022 he revealed that, shortly after he was elected Pope, he wrote a letter of resignation to be invoked if he became medically incapacitated. Pope Paul VI did something similar in 1965, but it was never invoked.

Yes. In fact, Pope Francis was elected after his predecessor, Benedict XVI, stepped down in 2013. He became the first Pope to do so since Gregory XII in 1415. He retained the title of Pope Emeritus until his death in 2022.

The 2019 film The Two Popes tells a fictionalized version of this transfer of power. It stars Jonathan Pryce as the future Pope Francis, and Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict XVI. You can watch it on Netflix.

Yes. Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow, imagines the death of a Pope and the election of a new one. Based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris, it is full of politics, scheming and some wild plot twists. It’s available on Amazon Prime and AppleTV.

The basics of the conclave are factual, but the twist ending (which we won’t spoil here) is made up. And Slate magazine points out that the appearance of a previously unknown Cardinal, as happens in the movie, couldn’t take place.

In the movie, Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz) was secretly named Cardinal of Kabul, Afghanistan, by the Pope before he died. And while such secret Cardinals do exist in reality (often to keep them safe in troubled parts of the world), they need to be publicly named by the Pope to take full status, including voting rights.

National Post, with additional reporting by Simona Milutinovic

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