Conclave statistics

The Zenit news service has produced an article with statistics from the Vatican information service about Papal Conclaves since the eighteenth century which may be of interest to readers. I have edited it slightly:

In the entire history of the Church, the longest papal election - taking place in Viterbo, Italy in 1268 following the death of Clement IV and ending with the election of Gregory X - lasted for over two years. It was as a result of this instance that the modern papal Conclave was instituted.

In modern history, the longest Conclave was that of 1740. It lasted from 18 February until 17 August, 181 days. Fifty-one cardinals participated in the final ballot, four cardinals having died during the proceedings.

In 1758, the Conclave that elected Clement XIII lasted from 15 May until 6 July, 53 days. Forty-five cardinals participated, but one was absent at the final ballot, having left the Conclave because of illness.

In 1769, Clement XIV was elected after 94 days, from 15 February until 19 May. Forty-six cardinals participated in the vote.

Beginning in 1774, the Conclave that elected Pius VI lasted 133 days, from 5 October of that year until 15 February 1775. Forty-six cardinals entered in the Conclave but two of them died during the proceedings.

The Conclave that elected Pius VII took place in Valencia, Spain, since Rome was under occupation by Napoleon’s troops. It lasted from 1 December 1799 until 14 March 1800, 105 days. It was the last Conclave held outside of Rome and 34 cardinals participated.

In 1823, Leo XII was elected after 27 days, 2 September until 28 September, and 49 cardinals participated.

In 1829, the Conclave that elected Pius VIII lasted 36 days, 24 February until 31 March, and 50 cardinals participated.

At the Conclave that began in 1831, the last cardinal not to be bishop was elected Pope, Gregory XVI. The Conclave that elected him lasted 51 days, from 14 December 1830 until 2 February of the following year and 45 cardinals participated.

“Short” Conclaves began to take place from 1846, with the election of Blessed Pius IX. Fifty cardinals elected him Pope in a conclave lasting three days, from 14 to 16 June of that year.

After the longest papal reign, which lasted more than thirty years, the following Conclave also lasted three days, from 18 to 20 February in 1878. Sixty-one cardinals participated in the vote to elect Leo XIII. It is interesting to note that, as his reign was the third longest in Papal history, lasting over 25 years, only four of the cardinals that elected him participated in another Conclave. Another interesting fact from this Conclave is that the first American to be created a cardinal, Cardinal John McCloskey, Archbishop of New York, would have been the first non-European to take part in a papal election but he arrived too late to participate. That honour was to go to Cardinal James Gibbons, archbishop of Baltimore, Maryland at the next Conclave.

In 1903 St. Pius X was elected Pope by 64 cardinals in a Conclave that lasted five days, from 31 July until 4 August, and had 7 ballots. It was the last time that the “Jus Exclusivae” (“right of exclusion” or right to veto a candidate for the papacy claimed by the Catholic monarchs of Europe) was exercised. The Italian Cardinal Mariano Rampolla was vetoed by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary. After his election, St. Pius X abolished the right of heads of state to exercise a veto.

In 1914, the Conclave that elected Benedict XV lasted four days, from 31 August until 3 September. The 57 participating cardinals had 10 ballots. Three North American Cardinals were locked out of the Sistine Chapel, having arrived too late to enter but it was the first time that a Latin American Cardinal participated, Cardinal Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti, Archbishop of Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In 1922, during the Conclave that elected Pius XI, 53 cardinals held 7 ballots over five days, from 2 to 6 February. Two American and one Canadian cardinal were again left out of the Conclave for having arrived too late. After his election, Pius XI established a period of 15 days from the beginning of the Sede Vacante to entering into Conclave in order to allow cardinals enough time to travel to Rome.

In the 1939 Conclave that elected Pius XII, the first patriarch of an Eastern rite participated in the election: His Beatitude Mar Ignatius Gabriel I Tappouni, patriarch of Antioch and all the East of the Syrians. It was the first to which a cardinal travelled by air, in this case the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon. The Conclave, the shortest of the twentieth century, lasted just two days, from 1 to 2 March. The 62 cardinals held 3 ballots.

In the Conclave of 1958 that elected Blessed John XXIII, cardinals from China, India, and Africa participated for the first time. The Conclave lasted four days, from 25 to 28 October and the 51 cardinals held 11 ballots.

In 1963, the Conclave lasted three days, from 19 to 21 June. The 80 cardinals elected Paul VI after 11 ballots.

In 1978, the Conclave that elected John Paul I was the first in which cardinals over the age of 80 did not participate. The Conclave lasted two days, 25 to 26 August. The 111 Cardinal electors held four ballots.

In the second Conclave celebrated that year - the reign of John Paul I lasting just 33 days, resulting in the most recent “Year of Three Popes” - Blessed John Paul II was elected by the same 111 Cardinal electors after eight ballots held over three days 14 to 16 October.

In 2005, Benedict XVI was elected Pope in the fourth ballot of the Conclave that lasted two days, from 18 to 19 April. The largest number of Cardinal electors ever took part in that election: 115.

The Conclave that begins today will be the first one since 1829 to be held during Lent. Once again 115 Cardinal electors will participate.

The Conclave

On the eve of the papal Conclave I am posting a piece adapted from an article by Edward Pentin on the Zenit website, to which I have added some further reflection and points of my own.

Some of the earliest papal elections are filled with political power struggles and interference that would be a hallmark of many later conclaves. In 687, after clashes between local clergy, the army, and a conniving archdeacon of Rome, electors simply plucked a priest called Sergius from the midst of the people, sent him to the Imperial palace where he was acknowledged as Pope, and then hurried to the Lateran where he was consecrated pontiff. Surprisingly, given the arbitrary nature of the choice, Pope Sergius I went on to become an accomplished Successor of Peter.

A similar unceremonious election took place in 731 when, during the burial of Pope Gregory II, a priest was again seized, this time from the funeral procession, and rushed off to the Lateran where he was made Pope Gregory III by popular acclamation. As Papal elections were often compromised by outside forces, in particular lay interference, a number of subsequent attempts were made to restrict the voters to clergy and bishops. After electors rigged his election, Pope Stephen III held a synod in 769 to try to ensure that only cardinal priests and deacons were allowed to be electors (until then they were leading clergy, army officers, their troops and leading citizens).

By the ninth century, attempts were made to limit interference in papal elections from Emperors and magnates of the Holy Roman Empire which, owing to the close relationship between the faith and temporal power, when Emperors could, and did, appoint or impose a Pope, had made the process an even greater hot-bed of corruption and skulduggery. Indeed it was the Imperal appointment of Pope Leo IX which paved the way for reform in the mid-eleventh century

As part of this the first major reform of Ppapal elections was in 1059, when Pope Nicholas II issued the decree Nomine Domine – In the name of the Lord. This decreed that Popes were to be elected by cardinal bishops alone. The rest of the cardinals would then be asked to give their assent and after that, the clergy and laity of Rome. The intention was to remove papal elections from the control of noble Roman families such as the Crescentii and Tusculani, and the vagaries of the Roman crowd. As Peter Damian, the reforming Benedictine of that time, wrote: Cardinal bishops do the electing, other clergy give their assent and the people are able to give their applause.

However this did not resolve the problem and unseemly power struggles would continue, leading occasionally to antipopes – those chosen by a rival faction or a rival power in the person of the Emperor who did  not the legitimately elected pontiff.

Pope Nicholas II's successor, Pope Alexander II, faced a rival in the person of Cadalus, the bishop of Parma, who was put forward by German powers because he would be more sympathetic to the Imperial cause. Cadalus was never installed as Pope Honorius II, and simply went back to being the bishop of Parma once efforts to have him installed were exhausted, although he never abandoned his claim to the papacy. The same threat was faced by Pope Gregory VII who was forced to flee from Rome, dying in exile.

In 1130 the cardinals met in two seperate groups in Rome and elected both Pope Innovent II and Pope Anacletus II - the latter has been adjudged the antipope by history, but the matter took a decade to resolve.

Conclaves – which means "with key" indicating that they were secured from outside influence by enforced isolation – came into being in 1179 and the Third Lateran Council of the great canon lawyer Pope Alexander III - who had himself faced an Imperial sponsored antipope. In order to avoid dissension in future papal elections, Pope Alexander introduced the rule that any new Pope had to have a two thirds majority. All cardinals were to vote, not just cardinal bishops. This remained the rule  until Pope Pius XII, who then made it two-thirds plus one - so that the successful candidate did not secure the Holy See on his own vote. Pope John Paul II reduced it back to two thirds, with a simple majority after 34 votes. Pope Benedict XVI made further changes to the process in 2007, reinstating the two thirds rule, but introduced a run-off vote after 34 unsuccessful voting rounds whereby everyone but the two leading candidates are eliminated. The first of the two to reach the necessary two thirds is then elected.

The Alexandine reforms only partially worked, and divisions and deadlock would continue. In 1261, the cardinals were deeply divided, and eventually looked outside their own and plumped for a non-cardinal – Jacques Pantaleon, the Patriarch of Jerusalem. He would undoubtedly have been surprised: Pantaleon just happened to be visiting the papal curia on diocesan business at the time.
    

Arguably the most bizarre conclave took place in 1271. The Holy See had papacy had been vacant since 1268 and cardinals were struggling to decide on a Pope for a year and a half because of the influence and interference of external powers. Reflecting the frustration many felt, Raniero Gatti, 'Captain of the people', locked the cardinals up in the Papal palace, had the roof taken off, restricted their diet, and surrounded the palace with soldiers. Some cardinals were taken ill as they were left exposed to the elements.

Such protracted conclaves led Pope Gregory X to issue the decree Ubi periculum – 'Where there is danger' - in 1274. Among the rules, he ordered that all future conclaves take place in the city where the Pope died, wait ten days for all the Cardinals to arrive, and that all Cardinals live in common in one room with no partition or curtain. They also had to be completely locked in - no one was allowed to enter, communicate with them, nor they with anyone else. Moreover, after three days without an election, they were allowed only one dish at lunch and supper, then after five days, given only bread, wine and water until they elected a Pope. A number of provisos existed when cardinals were taken ill or needed to attend to urgent business.

Ubi periculum was soon to be temporarily rescinded and protracted conclaves would return. The one following the death of Pope Nicholas IV in 1292 was particularly divided between the factions in the Roman nobility, the Orsini and Colonna families. After nearly two years of deadlock, in 1294 a frustrated King Charles II of Naples drew up a list of his own. After that was rejected, he called on an elderly and holy hermit he knew, Pietro del Morrone, and got him to write a letter upbraiding the Cardinals for their dilatoriness. The Dean of the College of Cardinals read out the letter and said he would vote for Morrone to be Pope. The rest of the college followed suit, leading Morrone to be dragged to Rome and made Pope Celestine V.

As Pope, he reinstated Pope Gregory X's decree. But elderly, ill, and as far as he was concerned, unable to govern as Pope, Celestine resigned from the papacy in that same year of 1294 (Pope Benedict XVI has a devotion to Celestine and left his enthronement pallium on his remains  in 2009). He was succeeded by Pope Boniface VIII who incorporated Ubi periculum into the canon law of the Church in the Liber Sext of the Corpus Juris.

If by the Avignon period the Conclave had become established and legislated for it did not prevent othe rproblems, such as a two year delay in electing after the death of Pope Clement V in 1314; the election of Pope John XXII is recounted in Maurice Druon's splendid saga of the origins of the Hundred Years War.

The return to Rome of Pope Gregory XI in 1376 and his death in 1378 led to th diastrous events of the next election. The Cardinals, surrounded and in danger of invasion by the Roman mob demanding a Roman, or at least an Italian pope, elected Bartolomeo Prignano, Archbishop of Bari, a curial official they thought they could control. This was the last time anon-cardinal was elected - as Pope Urban VI he was in no way tractable and the Cardinals gradually withdrew from Rome, met again, pleaded that they had acted under duress in electing him and elected Cardinal Robert of Geneva as Pope Clement VII. Thus began the Great Schism.

It ended in 1417 with the election during the Council of Constance of Pope Martin V. On this one occasion the Cardinals were joined as electors by representitives of the five "Nations" which made up the Council in the wool warehose by the lake at Constance which can still be seen.

More Conclaves have included those of the Renaissance, with stories, which may well be fanciful, of Cardinals being bribed by successful candidates for their votes. Between 1590 and 1592, there were no less than four conclaves in 18 months.

In 1740 the conclave would last six months, during which four of the 68 cardinals died. The conclave of 1769 witnessed an unprecedented event with the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II and his brother Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany who arrived incognito in Rome on March 6 and were allowed to enter the conclave. The Emperor stayed there two weeks, freely debating with the electors. Fortunately, he did not press them but only expressed the wish for the election of a Pope who would be able to carry out his duties with the proper respect for the secular rulers. A further lengthy conclave took place from October 1774 to February 1775, leading to the election of Pope Pius VI.

Conclave procedures have changed considerably since then, as have the fortunes of the Papacy. After the death in captivity of Pope Pius in 1799 his successor, Pope Pius VII was elected and crowned in Venice in 1800. Following the loss of Papal control of Rome in 1870 Disraeli offered Malta to the Cardinals as a place for the conclave of 1878, but it was held in the Vatican, as have been all subsequent ones.

Two methods of choosing a Pope – by inspiration (cardinals nominate a candidate and greeted with unanimous acclaim) and compromise (choice is made by a mediating committee) – have long since been dropped and were formally abolished by Pope John Paul II in 1996, and only scrutiny, that is by secret ballot, requiring the now customary two thirds majority, remains. 

In the 1970s, Pope Paul VI introduced the age limit of 80 for electors, and 120 as the maximum number of voting cardinals. Blessed Pope John Paul II, meanwhile, in his 1996 decree ordered that conclaves must always take place in the Sistine Chapel. Previous Popes recommended the chapel, but earlier conclaves have been held in a variety of churches in Rome and other cities. Both in 2007 and on the eve of his abdication Pope Benedict XVI introduced further adjustments to the procedures; the most recent can be seen in  'Motu Proprio' Apostolic Letter Regarding the Election of the Roman Pontiff .

The Conclave which commences tomorrow will be the 75th in the life of the Church – historians date the first as taking place in 1295 when Pope Boniface VIII inserted Pope Gregory X's decree into canon law.

Danger - Vaticanologists at work

A post by Fr Tim on the Hermeneutic of Continuity directed me to a piece on Rorate Caeli about the reliability of Vaticanologists on the outcome of the impending conclave. It can be read at Editorial note - "Religious correspondents", "Vaticanists": they really don't know much more about the Conclave than the rest of us  and bears out what so often seems to be the case in such reporting.

With hindsight we may say that Cardinal Ratzinger was the obvious candidate in 2005, but that was not clear at the time. 

The piece also ties in with the statement from the Secretary of State's office about attempts to manipulate opinion in advance of the Conclave. One should ask what is the agenda of commentators, and indeed how well informed they are.

So before you put your bet on the outcome of the Papal election, ask yourself whose opinion you are following when you pick the winner. Remeber also that the Cardinals have shown over the years a not unremarkable tendency to choose a less than immediately obvious candidate.