1
CONCLAVE
“Let me go to the house of the Father.”
These words were whispered in Polish at 3:30 P.M. on April 2, 2005. A little over six hours later, the Catholic Church was set on an unprecedented new course.
Pope John Paul II was dead. Since 1991, the Vatican had kept his illness secret, admitting only in a 2003 statement on the eve of his eighty-third birthday what had already become clear to the world’s then 1.1 billion Catholics. The pontiff’s slow and painful deterioration from Parkinson’s disease had long been agonizing to watch.
Rome had been ablaze with speculation and rumor since February 1, when the pope was rushed to his private wing in Gemelli University Hospital for the treatment of symptoms of “acute inflammation of the larynx and laryngo-spasm,” caused by a recent bout of flu. The press duly assembled for the deathwatch.
Over the following two months, however, John Paul II had displayed more of the same resilience that had characterized his many years of illness. This was, after all, a pope who during his twenty-six-year reign had survived not one but two assassination attempts; he had recovered from four gunshot wounds in 1981 and a bayonet attack a year later. Now, despite multiple readmissions to the hospital and a tracheotomy, he continued to appear at various Vatican windows and balconies to bless the crowds in St. Peter’s Square. His voice was barely audible. He missed the Palm Sunday Mass for the first time during his tenure as pope, but, dedicated to the last, he was presented in a wheelchair on Easter Sunday, March 27, and attempted to make his traditional address. He was described as “[looking] to be in immense distress, opening and shutting his mouth, grimacing with frustration or pain, and several times raising one or both hands to his head.” It was all too much for the estimated eighty thousand devoted Catholics watching below, and tears flowed freely. The pope managed a brief sign of the cross before being wheeled behind the curtains of his apartment.
Over the following six days the Vatican frequently updated the world on his worsening condition, and those who had been hopeful that he might make a full recovery began to accept that his death was only a matter of time. On the morning of April 1 a public statement advised, “The Holy Father’s health condition is very grave.” At 7:17 the previous evening, he had “received the Last Rites.” John Paul’s most trusted friend and personal secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, administered the sacraments to John Paul II to prepare him for his final journey, by giving him absolution from his sins and anointing him with the holy oils on his forehead and on the backs of his hands, as is done only with priests. (Those not ordained are anointed on the palms of their hands.) Vatican expert and biographer of Pope Benedict XVI, John L. Allen Jr. witnessed this press briefing and described how “the most telling indication of the true gravity of the situation came at the end of the briefing, when [Vatican spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls] choked back tears as he walked away from the platform where he spoke to reporters.”
Surrounded by those who had loved and cherished him for so many years, John Paul II regained consciousness several times during his final twenty-four hours, and was described by his personal physician, Dr. Renato Buzzonetti, as looking “serene and lucid.” In accordance with Polish tradition, “a small, lit candle illuminated the gloom of the room where the pope was expiring.” When he became aware of the crowds calling his name from the vigil below, he uttered words that Vatican officials deciphered as “I have looked for you. Now you have come to me and I thank you.”
Dr. Buzzonetti ran an electrocardiogram for twenty minutes to verify Pope John Paul’s death. Once this was done, the centuries-old Vatican rituals began, elements of which date back to as early as 1059, when Pope Nicholas II radically reformed the process of papal elections, in an effort to prevent further installation of puppet popes under the control of opposing imperial and noble powers, through a decree stating that cardinals alone were responsible for choosing successors to the Chair of St. Peter.
Cardinal Eduardo Martínez Somalo had been appointed camerlengo by the late pope to administer the church during the period known as the interregnum (“between the reigns,” which lasts from the moment of death until a new pope is found), and he now stepped forward to call John Paul three times by his Polish baptismal name, Karol. When no answer was received, he struck a small silver hammer on John Paul’s forehead as a sure indication of his death. He was then required to destroy with a hammer the Ring of the Fisherman, or Annelo Pescatorio (the papal ring cast for each pope since the thirteenth century) to symbolize the end of his reign.
And so the death of John Paul was announced to the world. The public outpouring of grief was breathtaking, with many soon referring to him by the prestigious (albeit unofficial) appendage of “the Great,” previously afforded only to pope-saints Leo I (ruled A.D. 440–461), Gregory I (590–604), and Nicholas I (858–867). His body was dressed in bloodred vestments and taken to the Apostolic Palace, where members of the papal administrative offices and agencies of the Catholic Church, known as the Roman Curia, could pay their respects, before being transferred to St. Peter’s Basilica the following day for the beginning of the nine official days of mourning known as the novemdiales, a custom dating back to the novemdiale sacrum, an ancient Roman rite of purification held on the ninth and final day of a period of festivity. An estimated four million pilgrims and three million residents of Rome filed past to give thanks and pray for this most beloved of men, astonishing figures when compared with the previous record of 750,000 people who visited the body of Pope Paul VI in August 1978. John Paul had left instructions that, should he not be alive to read it himself, his final address be read out by the substitute of the Secretariat of State, Archbishop Leonardo Sandri. During mass at the Feast of Divine Mercy held at St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, April 3, Sandri read John Paul’s final message of peace, forgiveness, and love, which told the people, “As a gift to humanity, which sometimes seems bewildered and overwhelmed by the power of evil, selfishness, and fear, the Risen Lord offers his love that pardons, reconciles, and reopens hearts to love. It is a love that converts hearts and gives peace.”
Tough act to follow.
And there was no time to waste. Interregnum tradition demanded that the funeral take place between the fourth and sixth day following a pope’s death. Therefore, it was scheduled for Friday, April 8. Likewise, the conclave to elect his successor must occur no earlier than fifteen or later than twenty days after his death, so was announced to begin on April 18.
The Vatican began planning the funeral with military precision. The responsibility of presiding over events fell to Joseph Ratzinger, as dean of the College of Cardinals—who, despite having no authority over his brother cardinals, “is considered as first among equals” and who, incidentally, had also been John Paul’s right-hand man for twenty-four years. Nicknamed the Pilgrim Pope on account of his globetrotting travels to 129 countries, John Paul II had traveled more miles than all the previous popes in the church’s two-thousand-year history combined, ensuring that heads of state, royalty, and dignitaries from across the globe would be in attendance alongside the crowds of Catholic faithful. A more diverse group of people had gathered at few other moments throughout history, and many opposing nations were united through their mutual respect for the late pontiff. Prince Charles postponed his wedding to Camilla Parker-Bowles to be able to attend alongside the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. U.S. president George W. Bush was seen leaning over to shake the hand of staunch Iraq War critic President Jacques Chirac of France, as United Nations secretary-general Kofi Anan watched on alongside former presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush. The Israeli president, Moshe Katsav, chatted and shook hands with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and the president of Iran, Mohammed Khatami, although Khatami later strenuously denied the exchange. It would be the largest funeral of a pope in the history of the Catholic Church, and an estimated two billion people worldwide tuned in to watch the live broadcast on television, with one million of those watching on large outdoor screens specially erected around the city of Rome.
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The ceremony began with a private requiem mass inside St. Peter’s Basilica attended by members of the College of Cardinals and the nine Patriarchs of Oriental Catholic Churches, which, though celebrating different liturgies and having their own structures of government, are in full communion with the pope. His body was laid inside a coffin made from cypress wood, a centuries-old tradition that symbolizes his humanity among men, and would later be further enclosed in two caskets of lead and elm, signifying his death and dignity respectively. Inside the coffin a sealed document officially concluding his entire life’s work as pope was placed alongside “three bags, each containing one gold, silver, or copper coin for each year in Pope John Paul II’s reign,” before a white silk veil was placed over his face and hands. That ceremony concluded, the now-closed coffin was carried by twelve papal gentlemen—formerly known as secret chamberlains, these are laymen of noble Roman families who have served the popes for centuries as attendants of the papal household—and accompanied by the slow procession chanting hymns, who made their way into St. Peter’s Square to begin the public funeral.
Many would come to believe that Cardinal Ratzinger’s conduct during this three-hour-long spectacle secured him the papacy. In his homily, amid continual interjections of applause from the crowds, he spoke at length in “human, not metaphysical, terms” of John Paul’s life from his childhood in Poland through to the end of his days in Rome. In his recollection of one of the pope’s last public appearances, the usually unemotional and ultraformal German’s voice cracked as he choked back tears. It was a magnificent and surprising performance to all who witnessed it.
As the funeral drew to a close and the motorcades and helicopters of the dignitaries began to depart, the crowds were left chanting, “Santo subito!” (Sainthood now!) When exhaustion finally descended across the city, people too weary to attempt the journey home lay sleeping on the streets. Talk inside the Vatican and among the world’s media turned to who would succeed the pope now buried in the “bare earth” in the crypt below St. Peter’s Basilica, in accordance with his wishes.
ISSUES FACING THE CARDINAL ELECTORS
With just ten days to go before the 115 cardinals who had assembled in Rome for the funeral would be drawn into conclave to choose the next pope, discreet conversations to promote favored candidates—open campaigning is strictly forbidden—could begin in earnest. This was a delicate balancing act, and the process needed to be handled carefully to avoid the dreaded Pignedoli Principle. This respected theory, conceived by George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., is named after Cardinal Sergio Pignedoli, hotly tipped by the press to win the 1978 conclave that elected Pope John Paul II. The principle states that “a man’s chances of becoming pope decrease in proportion to the number of times he is described as papabile [the unofficial term used to refer to cardinals who are viewed as potential future popes] in the press.” Technically, all cardinals entering the conclave were eligible candidates for consideration; however, this veneer of simplicity shielded myriad theological and political outlooks that mean electing a successor to the Chair of St. Peter would be far from simple, just as it had been throughout the 729 years since the first conclave, in 1276.
Following an impasse that resulted in an interregnum of almost three years, Pope Gregory X was elected in 1271 and set about developing a format to ease the process whereby cardinals were required to remain in conclave until a decision was reached and even have their food rations reduced to just bread, water, and wine after five days or more of deadlock. Unfortunately, despite efforts to implement these changes when Gregory died, on January 10, 1276, political power plays and infighting would see four popes in as many years after his death and three further interregnums lasting more than two years, in 1292–94, 1314–16, and 1415–17. Centuries would go by until conclaves ceased to last longer than a week, with the election of Pope Pius VIII in 1831. All meetings bar one were held in Rome—which perhaps influenced the Italians’ complete dominance in the role from 1523 until the election of Polish John Paul II in 1978—and had a strictly European result before Pope Francis’s succession in 2013.
The warmth and affection for John Paul displayed by the millions of mourners at his funeral could almost mislead one to believe that the Catholic Church was in better shape than it had ever been. The harsh reality was that this was a church increasingly at odds with modern society, one that seemed unable to find a way to keep pace with, let alone guide, the lives of its followers around the globe. John Paul’s tenure had been like no other in touching the faithful, but dwindling numbers of church attendees in country after country proved that this was not enough to sustain the church’s position. Michael J. Lacey, coauthor of Crisis of Authority in Catholic Modernity, described the Catholic Church as suffering from “an underlying crisis of authority … the laity seems to be learning to deal with it to their own satisfaction by not expecting too much from Rome or from their local ordinaries.…” What was the church to do to combat these problems?
Problems had been further intensified by the sexual abuse crisis that rocked the church in 2002 and continues to shake it to this day. The Vatican fervently defended John Paul’s record of handling abuse cases reported to the church, claiming, in 2014, that he did not understand the severity of the “cancer” because the “purity” of his mind and thoughts made this whole situation “unbelievable” to him. But the crisis loomed large in the minds of the assembling cardinals, and as respected Catholic author and journalist David Gibson describes, “the anger over the scandal went much deeper than the sexual abuse itself … and centered principally on the abuse of authority that had allowed such crimes to go unchecked for years, even decades. In that sense, the sexual abuse scandals were symptomatic of a larger crisis afflicting the Church, one that centered on how authority—and the power that authority conferred—was wielded in the Church of John Paul II.”
Alongside these key issues, cardinals brought their own regional troubles to the table, among them “secularism in Western Europe, the rise of global Islam, the growing gap between rich and poor in the north and the south, and the proper balance in church government between the center and the periphery.”
Thanks to the positive media attention that had surrounded the funeral, one could easily assume that the swell of public feeling presented the ideal opportunity for the church to shake things up and tackle its institutional failings. Internally, however, opinions were quite the opposite. It was felt that the problems facing the church in the future were so great that radical changes at this juncture could not resolve the dividing issues faced by cardinals from Western and developing nations, while at the same time continuing John Paul’s legacy as an inspirational and engaging man of the people. It was too tall an order, and the majority of cardinals decided they needed a safe pair of hands and a smooth transition to deal with issues that could crush the church irreparably. The only remaining question was, Whose hands?
THE CANDIDATES
As the pressure began to mount, the Vatican took the unprecedented move of imposing a media blackout from April 8 until the opening of the conclave. Putting aside the irony of such a move, given that the process itself was secret, this was seen by many to be a frustrating interference by none other than the famed Vatican enforcer of rules and doctrine, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger. In reality, it was an attempt to even the playing field for the cardinals from non-Italian or non-English-speaking countries, especially those from Africa, South America, and Asia, who believed themselves to be at an unfair disadvantage to European and American cardinals, who had a disproportionate amount of airtime in which to outline their opinions on the issues facing the church.
The media blackout, unsurprisingly, did not prevent gossip from reaching the newspapers, but many of the cardinals remained diplomatic, insisting that there was no clear favorite in the lead-up to the conclave. In reality, there was considerable speculation about a number of candidates representing both conservative and progressive ideologies. One issue that most were certain of, after the twenty-six-year papacy of John Paul, was that the new pope was unlikely to be a young man, so as to ensure a significantly shorter tenure than that of his predecessor—although few would have believed just how short it would be. As writer Paul Collins notes, “a weakened or even senile pope who is unable or unwilling to resign could confront the Church with a massive constitutional conundrum. Under present rules, no one can sack the pope.” John Paul’s personalization of the papacy had resulted in a reign more akin to a centralized autocracy, where little freedom of action was afforded to individual bishops or heads of religious orders; consequently, there had been a direct correlation between the pope’s deteriorating health and the reduced ability of the church to act on pressing issues. It had been left in limbo, unable to act on any major decisions, “forced to mark time with important problems unaddressed as [it awaited] the demise of the Pope.”
John Paul II had appointed more cardinals than any other pontiff (231) and had set the record for largest number created at any one time when he named forty-four in February 2001, a move seen by many as an effort to secure his legacy by choosing cardinals who espoused his theological views on the direction the church should take after his death. These were swiftly followed by a further thirty creations in 2003. The total number of cardinals still young enough to vote—after the age of eighty, cardinals become ineligible—at the conclave who had been chosen by John Paul himself was 113. While not all were carved in John Paul’s mold as orthodox conservatives with a passion for the disenfranchised poor, this staggering figure did ensure that his shadow lingered long in the minds of many when voting began.
The nine meetings (known as consistories) in which John Paul created his 231 new cardinals occurred over a period of twenty-four years and had allowed for the evolution of many differing opinions, in the most simplistic terms, two opposing camps within the modern church.
THE CONSERVATIVES
This group of cardinals had all been appointed precisely because of their strong belief in John Paul’s teachings and a papal-centric church and in the hope that they would continue his work after he was gone. They believed that “Catholicism must increasingly stand against the prevailing post-modern culture” and that “there [was] a real danger that many Catholics, including priests and theologians, [would] become completely compromised by secularism and relativism.” Fundamentally, the conservative candidates were all strong believers that doctrine must not be altered to assimilate the church into a changing society.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany (age 78)
As John Paul II’s longtime right-hand man, and considered by many to be the obvious successor, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was a front-runner from the start.
Of the 115 cardinals eligible to vote in the conclave, Ratzinger was one of only two whom John Paul II had not appointed himself. The two men had, however, formed a close bond when both were cardinals. As Ratzinger described it himself, “As soon as he became pope he had made up his mind to call me to Rome as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [CDF]. He had placed a great, very cordial, and profound trust in me. As the guarantee, so to speak, that we would travel the right course in the faith.” Having occupied this role since 1981, Ratzinger was John Paul’s doctrinal watchdog—the press referred to him as “God’s Rottweiler,” his fellow clerics as the “Panzer Kardinal”—and one of the most powerful men in the Vatican. The two men shared and exercised hard-line conservative beliefs, tempered by a social conscience for the poor and disadvantaged.
The official role of the CDF, founded in 1542 and perhaps better known by its original name, the Sacred Roman and Universal Inquisition, was “to promote and defend the doctrine of the faith and its traditions in all of the Catholic world.” The world had changed somewhat since the sixteenth-century days of heresy and the Inquisition. The most recent Vatican Council meeting, from 1962–65 (more commonly known as Vatican II), had managed to “[drag] the Catholic Church, part of it kicking and screaming, out of the early nineteenth into the mid-twentieth century … [and opened] the Church to the contemporary world … to enter into a serious but critical dialogue with it.” It soon became apparent to many that the conclusions of the council had in fact been left wide open to opposing interpretations. Consequently, when John Paul II became pope, many of those who had assumed him to be a liberal and progressive candidate were surprised at the speed with which he reinterpreted Vatican II in a much more conservative light.
From within his department at the CDF, Ratzinger was considered to have had the last word on the enforcement of John Paul’s theological interpretation of Vatican II, as well as on disciplinary matters within the church—including, most recently, high-profile sexual abuse cases. Ratzinger aired his concerns for the church’s future in a speech the day before the death of John Paul, stating that North America and Europe had “developed a culture that excludes God from the public consciousness, either by denying him altogether or by judging that his existence cannot be demonstrated, is uncertain and, therefore, somewhat irrelevant.”
As well as his pivotal role in the CDF, Ratzinger also held the office of dean of the College of Cardinals. When it came to the conclave, he once more was to be found presiding over official proceedings. He was ideally placed to do so, for he knew all the cardinals by name and, moreover, spoke a reported ten languages. Although he was previously dismissed as a quiet but divisive theologian and scholar with a weak public presence, his successful handling of events prior to and following the death of John Paul culminated in a huge shift of opinion in his favor.
It was not just his commanding performance of John Paul’s funeral homily that had turned the heads of many cardinals. On Good Friday, March 25, 2005, Ratzinger had spoken in place of the ailing pope during the traditional Way of the Cross procession. When he came to the Stations of the Cross, colleagues listened in disbelief as he said, “How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him.” And praying to God, he said, “Lord, your church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking on water on every side.”
It is hard to read these words and not feel that this was a thinly veiled attack on all those involved in the sexual abuse crisis that was poisoning the reputation of the Catholic Church. What was this performance if not that of a man showing he was capable of challenging the rot within the church head-on and publicly? But did he intend to do so as another pontiff’s right-hand man, or was Ratzinger in fact proposing himself for consideration with this startling condemnation of church failings?
The cardinal’s past—to those who had studied it—would indicate otherwise. He had resisted elevation to high office on numerous occasions, preferring instead to devote himself to a quiet life of theological writing. But only the days that followed would reveal if Ratzinger did want to be pope. If he did, his complete lack of pastoral experience, and his own advancing age and poor health—he had suffered a stroke in 1991—might lead some cardinals to wonder if he was too weak and ill equipped for the task.
Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria (72)
A convert to Christianity at age nine, Arinze was born into the Ibo tribe in Nigeria and became a rising star among African Catholics when he was consecrated a bishop at just thirty-three years old. The idea of a pope from a developing country would be greeted with a rapturous response from neighboring regions, but Arinze’s outspoken, ultraconservative views weighed against any real chances.
Cardinal Camillo Ruini, Vicar of Rome (73)
Described as getting “high marks for administration but low marks for charisma,” Ruini was another of John Paul’s close allies and a familiar face in Italian media. Though he was regarded as “the most powerful Italian cardinal,” his quadruple bypass surgery in 2000 and outspoken criticisms of Italian government policies on, among other things, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and artificial insemination, meant opinions of him were strongly divided.
THE REFORMERS
The opposing group of cardinals were mostly from pluralist societies in which traditional church teachings on such controversial issues as divorce, abortion, and homosexuality were continually up for debate among faithful and clergy alike. These men, while having been appointed by John Paul, were only now as cardinals free to express dissenting opinions on orthodox doctrine and a centralized church without fear of their career prospects being curtailed. They acknowledged and respected John Paul’s many diplomatic achievements in global peace conflicts and his passion for greater social equality, but many of these cardinals “had real problems with his moral, doctrinal, reproductive and intra-mural church stances.”
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Italy (78)
Unlike the majority of his Italian colleagues, Cardinal Martini was an outspoken, left-of-center cardinal who had both pastoral and administrative experience. A highly respected and thoughtful Jesuit theologian, he was a surprising appointment for the notably conservative John Paul and was described by John Allen Jr. as being “the great white hope of Catholicism’s liberal wing for more than two decades.”
However, his chances of becoming pope had faded somewhat in recent years. No Jesuit has ever sat in the Chair of St. Peter. And there was another stumbling block: he, like John Paul before him, had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and, at seventy-eight, was one of the oldest men in contention. In 2002, John Paul had granted Martini’s request to resign from his position as archbishop of Milan, and he relocated to Jerusalem to live out his retirement in scholarly peace—hardly the actions of a man who wished to take on the greatest responsibility of his life.
Cardinal Claudio Hummes of São Paulo (71)
Known for his exemplary skills as a pastor and for championing marginalized peoples, the archbishop of São Paulo “assumed mythical status in his battles with the generals of the Brazilian dictatorship” as a young bishop in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His radicalism had softened somewhat with age, and he had been invited to preach to John Paul and senior clergy at the Vatican in 2002, which many felt indicated strong approval from the late pope. As a leading voice in favor of reform, he believed that the church was too concerned with the West and should open itself up to place developing nations on an even footing. As 42 percent of the world’s Catholics lived in Latin America, the election of Claudio Hummes would no doubt receive a rapturous response.
THE MODERATES
Falling somewhere in between the conservatives and the reformers, the moderates were not bound by a united vision for the future of the church, as the opposing two camps were, and as a consequence were perceived as more malleable by either side, should one of them be elected pope. Conversely, however, they had the potential to disrupt any clear conservative or progressive candidate’s chances, if a losing side decided to put votes behind a moderate to try to force a stalemate.
Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan (71)
Aptly described as being “roly-poly, affable,” and “short, stout, and quick to smile,” Cardinal Tettamanzi was another socially conscious conservative who had been very close to John Paul. With a strong background in theology, he worked with the late pope on his seminal encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), which reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s views on the sanctity of life with respect to abortion, euthanasia, birth control, and the death penalty, but according to leading Vatican commentator Sandro Magister, “now that these topics have become more crucial than ever in the United States, Europe and Italy, both inside and outside the Church, a real ‘epochal question’ in Ratzinger and Ruini’s judgement, he doesn’t talk about them anymore.” Tettamanzi was a vocal campaigner for the rights of underprivileged populations. He stood in support of the antiglobalization protests at the G-8 summit protests in Genoa in 2001 and was quoted as saying, “A single African child sick with AIDS counts more than the entire universe.”
All this had made him one of the odds-on favorites in the always-a-bit-myopic Italian media, but Tettamanzi did not speak English, and a poor grasp of languages would create a significant barrier for any potential new pope.
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires (68)
Another Jesuit, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was known as the “slum bishop” on account of his compassionate work with the poor in his native Argentina, but his politics were more conservative-liberal than liberal-conservative—he was a strong supporter of traditionalist doctrine and had opposed legal reforms on same-sex marriage, gay adoptions, and abortion. At sixty-eight, he was the youngest contender; he also stood out in that he had been made a cardinal only four years earlier, in 2001.
Bergoglio had a reputation for being a compassionate, humble, and spiritual man who rejected the luxurious trappings available to one in his position and instead chose to live alongside his parishioners in a modest apartment and to ride the buses and subways of Buenos Aires rather than using a chauffeur-driven limousine. He had first come to prominence in 1998, when he made headlines by washing and kissing the feet of HIV/AIDS sufferers at a hospital in Buenos Aires. He had also made an impression within the church when, in October 2001, John Paul II selected him as relator at the Synod of Bishops, responsible for summarizing information to the conference, replacing Archbishop of New York Edward Egan, who had stayed in the city following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
At the time of the conclave, Latin America’s Catholics made up 40 percent of the church’s 1.1 billion followers; it was a long shot, but the prospect of a pope from one of the developing countries was not to be dismissed easily. As a cardinal (from a developing country) is quoted in John Allen’s book The Rise of Benedict XVI, “If we elect a pope from Honduras or Nigeria, there would be a very dynamic and excited local church behind him, as there was with John Paul II and Poland. If we elect someone from Belgium or Holland, can you imagine the Belgians or the Dutch getting excited? He simply wouldn’t have the same base of support.”
Bergoglio had garnered significant high-ranking support among those who thought him capable of lowering the Vatican’s fortresslike walls and opening the church up to the wider world, while at the same time maintaining an “unwavering commitment to rather traditional doctrinal views.” But there were concerns as to whether he would even accept the pontificate if he won the election on account of his preference toward a humble lifestyle and the fact that Jesuits are oath-bound not to seek power.
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican Secretary of State (77)
The fourth and final Italian in contention, Cardinal Sodano had occupied many senior roles within the church before settling into his post as Vatican secretary of state in 1991. He accompanied John Paul on numerous diplomatic missions abroad, and controversially struck up a friendship with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, even campaigning for his release from detention in the United Kingdom in 1999. He maintained strong ties with Latin America and was a respected theologian, but his old age and rumored poor health meant he, too, was an unlikely successor to John Paul.
THE CONCLAVE APPROACHES
During a conclave (“with a key”), cardinals are literally locked inside the Sistine Chapel, with Vatican Swiss Guards keeping watch outside the doors, until they come to a successful agreement on who should be the next pope. John Paul had left strict instructions about maintaining the secrecy of the gathering, so Wi-Fi is blocked throughout the Holy City for the duration of proceedings, the Sistine Chapel is closed to tourists and swept for bugging devices, and sophisticated jamming devices are fitted throughout the Apostolic Palace to prevent information from leaking out. Inside the chapel, wooden walkways are specially laid to preserve the ancient floor, and long trestle tables with deep crimson fringing are brought in to seat the cardinal electors, adding even more color to a room already adorned with five-hundred-year-old frescos on its walls and ceiling.
One could easily be forgiven for assuming that, during the election of a pope, those locked inside the chapel debate the various merits of candidates and the importance of issues facing the church, just as democracies do throughout the world. Not so. A conclave is a quiet period of solemn prayer and reflection during which cardinals look for guidance from the Holy Spirit in their election of a new pope. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio later described “a climate of intense recollection—almost mystical—that was present at those sessions. We were all conscious of being nothing but instruments, to serve divine providence in electing a proper successor for John Paul II.”
Before the beginning of the conclave, during sede vacante (the period when the seat of St. Peter is vacant), all cardinals met in a general congregation presided over by Cardinal Ratzinger, as dean, and in smaller groups of just four cardinals, known as particular congregations. In these meetings, they were required to act on any pressing Vatican business that could not wait until a new pope was in place, as well as review John Paul’s fourteen-thousand-word apostolic directive Universi Dominici Gregis (The Shepherd of the Lord’s Whole Flock), in which he explained updated rules for how the conclave was to be conducted, revising the previous set of changes decreed by Pope Paul VI in 1975. Cardinal Ratzinger insisted that it be read aloud, line by line.
As he had at the funeral, Ratzinger surprised his colleagues with a glittering display of authority, fairness, and diplomacy. Not only did he know every cardinal by name—a feat John Paul never quite managed—but his facility with languages meant he could address and be understood by the many cardinals who did not speak Italian, let alone Latin. But it was not just his display of memory and linguistic flair that was impressive; the cardinals felt that he was genuinely concerned with what they had to say. At several times during proceedings he is said to have “intervened to ask those who had not yet spoken to do so”; and “when he had to summarize a discussion, he always seemed fair to the various points of view that had been expressed.” Some even came away from these discussions feeling he had outperformed the late, great pontiff himself, saying that “Ratzinger had heard them in a way that John Paul II did not always manage.”
TENSIONS AND SMEAR TACTICS
It is fair to suggest that the conduct of the general congregation was largely collegial and that cardinals were able to put their differences aside for the greater good of the church. But arguments did, on occasion, get heated and, even worse, smear stories began to appear in the media about each of the men considered papabile, despite the press blackout.
The most frequent bad press focused on candidates’ health, and stories of illness ranging from diabetes to depression surfaced in the papers and on TV news channels. The most aggressive form of sabotage, however, emerged three days before the conclave was scheduled to begin, when a deeply compromising emailed dossier “dropped anonymously into the inbox of senior cardinals as they gathered in Rome.” The email contained details of a complaint filed by Argentinian human rights lawyer Marcelo Parrilli, accusing Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of “complicity in the kidnapping of two Jesuit priests, whose work with the poor in a Buenos Aires shanty town was considered by Argentina’s military death squads in 1976 to be subversive.” Bergoglio had dismissed the priests a week prior to their disappearance, and Parrilli claimed that this dismissal had contributed to their being tortured and kept hooded and shackled during their five-month-long detention.
There was little time in which to refute these claims on any grand scale, let alone establish who had sent the email—we shall return to this chapter of Bergoglio’s life later—but what was immediately clear was that his candidacy was considered to be a significant threat among certain factions of the church, and there were some prepared to take desperate measures to discredit him. Supporters of Bergoglio strenuously denied the accusations in hushed conversations down the Vatican’s marble corridors and over dinners hosted by anti-Ratzinger “conclave power brokers,” one of whom wryly remarked, “Ever since the Last Supper, the church has decided its most important affairs at the dinner table.” But as the congregations drew to a close and the conclave began, it was uncertain whether the campaign against Bergoglio had been successful.
“EXTRA OMNES!”
And so it was time.
* * *
At exactly 4:30 P.M. on Monday, April 18, the 115 cardinals, resplendent in their traditional crimson “choir dress,” with accompanying wide white-lace sleeves, took their final steps of the procession from the Hall of Blessings—traditionally cardinals start the procession in the Cappella Paolina, but it was undergoing extensive renovations between 2002 and 2009—into the Sistine Chapel, singing the ninth-century “Litany of the Saints” as they walked. For the first time in history, this dazzling spectacle was broadcast live on television, and Catholics around the world were given a glimpse of ancient ritual as the cardinals took their assigned seats, arranged in order of seniority, and then an oath of secrecy, first collectively and then individually.
Once the last cardinal had placed his hand on the Book of the Gospels and stated that he did “promise, pledge, and swear, so help me God and these Holy Gospels which I now touch with my hand,” transmissions were ceased and at 5:24 P.M. Archbishop Piero Marini, papal master of liturgical ceremonies, declared “Extra omnes!”—Everyone out! When all but the cardinal electors had departed, the Swiss Guards, on duty during the entire process, locked the doors of the Sistine Chapel from the outside, and the voting began.
THE FIRST BALLOT
Tradition states that no one but cardinal electors are permitted inside when voting is taking place. Consequently, the cardinals have to roll up those beautiful sleeves and take turns at pivotal jobs. Nine names were drawn each morning by lot and assigned equally to the following roles:
Scrutineers These three men sit center stage at a table in front of the altar, beneath Michelangelo’s imposing fresco of the Last Judgment, and count the ballots.
Infirmarii Though none was required in the 2005 conclave, three men are still assigned to collect the ballots of any cardinal electors too ill to make it to the Sistine Chapel.
Revisers Another three cardinals are required to double-check the work of the scrutineers to ensure that the tallies of names and ballots are correct. If they are, the revisers return the ballots to the scrutineers, who read each name aloud before piercing the word Eligo on each ballot with a needle, then preserving the papers for burning in the chapel’s special stove once the count is complete.
During each round, cardinal electors were presented with a rectangular ballot paper with the words Eligo in Summum Pontificem (I elect as Supreme Pontiff), and required, per John Paul’s directive, to write, somewhat comically, “as far as possible in handwriting that cannot be identified as his,” the name of the man he would like to be pope (naturally excluding themselves). After folding the paper in half, the cardinals approached the altar, knelt to recite a prayer, and then took another oath, before placing their ballot on a gold paten, or plate, for all to see, then tipping it into a specially designed urn.
No pope has ever been elected after the first round of voting, and tallies are generally very disparate, after which numbers begin to align behind leading candidates until the final candidate is chosen. In his book The Rule of Benedict, David Gibson notes that it is customary for cardinals during the first ballot to “vote for a friend or to honor someone who will never be pope but who can at least know that they received a vote in a conclave”; it is even joked that they “vote for who they want on the first ballot, then they let the Holy Spirit guide them.” In the eight conclaves held during the twentieth century, the greatest number of ballots held in any one papal election was fourteen (Pope Pius XI, 1922) and the fewest was three (Pope Pius XII, 1939); the average is just under eight ballots per conclave, over an average of 3.5 days.
The number of cardinal electors had risen significantly from just sixty-four in the 1903 conclave to 111 in 1978, when John Paul II was elected. With the record-breaking 115 cardinals in 2005, the process of voting took a significant amount of time, but shortly after 8 P.M. on April 18, the forty-thousand-strong crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square was momentarily confused when a weak plume of what looked to be whitish-gray smoke began to emerge from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel. The unfortunate coincidence of the first ballot being burned at the same time as the hourly chiming of the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica caused many to erupt into cheers and applause. However, what would truly have been a miracle—a pope elected on the first ballot—was quickly dispelled by the sight of a thicker trail of dark gray-black smoke.
The Vatican had been using a white smoke signal to indicate the election of a new pontiff only since 1914, but its reliable unreliability had become something of a running joke. Countless hours and a significant amount of money had recently been spent upgrading the system … only for it to fail again on the first try.
As many had expected, this conclave did not end on the first day. What was unexpected, however, was that in September 2005 an anonymous cardinal broke the oaths of secrecy he had sworn to God on the altar of the Sistine Chapel and published an account of the voting tally throughout the conclave in the Italian foreign affairs magazine Limes.
Thanks to this anonymous cardinal’s decision to break his oath, we now know that in line with the initial predictions of many going into the conclave, Ratzinger was way out in front of all the other candidates but had not yet won the race. To secure the papacy, a cardinal is required to obtain seventy-seven votes (equivalent to two-thirds of the total), so he still required a hefty thirty minds to swing in his favor.
Among Ratzinger’s hotly tipped rivals, Tettamanzi performed the poorest, managing just two votes; and Martini’s meager nine felt more like a token of respect—recalling Gibson’s remarks regarding the first round of votes—for all his years of being papabile, rather than any serious move to elect a retired man with Parkinson’s.
The real surprise of the first ballot was Jorge Bergoglio’s count of ten. He was not considered by the secret diarist to be “a true candidate of [the] ‘left,’” but in the absence of Martini, he became the one to whom liberal, anti-Ratzinger votes would now fall. Still, he needed a significant number to swing behind him if he was to catch the Panzer Kardinal, who would likely benefit from the votes of John Paul allies Ruini and Sodano in the next round.
At the end of the first day, the cardinals made their way out of the Sistine Chapel and were bundled into waiting minibuses that whisked them back to their luxury lodgings—which the Vatican had spent a modest twenty million dollars on—for dinner, deliberations, and debate, in discreet but deliberate contravention of the rules, ahead of the next day’s voting. Cut off from the outside world, conversations ran long into the night and the air was thick with speculation about Bergoglio as a potential successor to John Paul.
Our secret Italian diarist suspected that “the realistic objective of the minority group that wants to support Bergoglio is to create a deadlock, which leads to the withdrawal of the Ratzinger nomination.” He also was not even sure if the Argentinian would accept the papacy, having watched him place his vote beneath the looming fresco of Christ: “He had his gaze fixed on the image of Jesus, judging souls at the end of time. His face, suffering, as if pleading: ‘God, please don’t do this to me.’”
THE SECOND AND THIRD BALLOTS
On the morning of Tuesday, April 19, the cardinals were woken at 6:30, attended mass at 7:30, and began the second round of voting at 9:30. When the results came in, it was clear that the previous evening’s discussions had been persuasive, and firm alliances were now being made.
Cardinal Ratzinger was still in the lead, having gained eighteen votes—six from Ruini and twelve from the other unnamed candidates—but he remained twelve votes shy of the total required to win. Sodano’s four supporters were not yet ready to concede, and neither were Tettamanzi’s two voters. The biggest gain of all came to Bergoglio, who received a staggering twenty-five more votes—nine from Martini, three from Maradiaga, and thirteen from new supporters—taking his total to thirty-five.
Despite this impressive leap, Ratzinger’s lead was strong enough for it now to be impossible for another cardinal to win unless a large number of voters deserted him. But the anonymous cardinal’s prediction about Ratzinger’s opponents wishing to create a deadlock was just four votes off fruition if Bergoglio were to receive the necessary one-third plus a vote total of thirty-nine in the next round. As titillating as this prospect might be, it was highly unlikely that the cardinals would let it get that far, for fear of damaging the reputation of the church with a hung conclave.
So as not to lose momentum, it was customary to proceed immediately to another ballot before announcing the results, so the cardinals voted a third time, at 11 A.M. Ambiguously gray smoke rose from the chimney just before noon, but no bells chimed, so the crowds understood there was still no pope.
The results of the third ballot showed that the election was now a two-horse race. Ratzinger’s increase of seven votes meant he needed only five more to secure the Chair of St. Peter, but with just three open voters remaining and Bergoglio’s increase of five, it was impossible for him to do so unless some of the Argentine’s supporters changed allegiance to him.
The break for lunch couldn’t have come at a more decisive moment. While the world waited, the cardinals were bused back to their hotel to quietly thrash out the results at their favorite boardroom: the dinner table. Ratzinger was described as being “the picture of calm,” while those around him scrabbled for stray votes to seal the deal. According to the diarist, Cardinal Martini had begun speculating that if the deadlock continued, then a change of candidates would be inevitable the following day and the process would have to start afresh. It was a prospect that few but Martini would relish.
THE FOURTH BALLOT
The time for conversations and campaigning over, the cardinals returned to the Sistine Chapel. When the afternoon’s voting began, the newspapers were speculating that Ratzinger was struggling to reach a convincing majority. To the electors voting inside the chapel, however, the feeling was that the race had finally been won.
At 5:30 P.M., almost twenty-four-hours exactly since the conclave began—making it one of the fastest elections in history—the votes were tallied and read aloud. Although most cardinals, including Ratzinger himself, had been keeping score themselves, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor recalled that when the elusive seventy-seventh vote was reached, “there was sort of a gasp all around, and then everyone clapped.”
Tears of joy flowed freely among Ratzinger’s supporters.
And the happiest guy in the room? Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
Over the following days, while Benedict was settling into his new role, the cardinals who were resident outside the city began to depart Rome for their respective dioceses. Many were leaving with feelings of surprise that the conclave had ended so quickly, and many were leaving with a huge sense of relief that it had, none more so than Cardinal Bergoglio. He could not wait to return home from the unexpected chaos of the conclave to his familiar streets of Buenos Aires.
At sixty-eight, Bergoglio would be eligible for retirement in just over six years, and he had even decided where he would like to spend his final days: back at the humble priests’ house he had lived in for five years when he was vicar general of the parish of Flores in Buenos Aires between 1993 and 1998. All he needed was a simple room, preferably on the bottom floor, as he didn’t “want to be above anybody else.”
Copyright © 2019 by Anthony McCarten
