Religion: The Conclave

All week long, the aromatic smell of in cense filled the churches of Rome. Blackedged posters proclaiming the death of Pope Pius XII covered the walls of the city, and everywhere, among the poor and the prosperous, men were wearing black armbands and women black veils. But even as the hammers rang out in St.

Peter’s to align the lid of the Pope’s lead coffin, all Rome was humming, too, in preparation for the suspense and mystery of electing the 262nd Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

“Abandon prognostications on the conclave,” exhorted Osservatore Romano. But in the city that once saw Popes chosen in great mass meetings of people and clergy, whose politicians often used strong-arm tactics to influence papal elections (as when Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II imprisoned cardinals to keep them from voting against his candidate), such exhortations were shouting against the wind.

And the wind of rumor and counter-rumor—would he be “political” or “pastoral,” Italian or non-Italian, young long-termer or aged caretaker—mounted through the week until it seemed that the only people not talking about the coming conclave were the cardinals themselves—each aware that any public discussion might bring down on him the accusation (punishable by excommunication if proved) of entering into “pacts, promises or other obligations.” When a newsman asked Cardinal Tisserant in the hall of the Consistory if he thought the future Pope might be in the room (which contained almost all the cardinals then in Rome), he replied: “Mon cher, this room is very large and I don’t see very well.”

Carpenters & Tailors. From the earth’s four corners the cardinals came, each with his two “conclavists”—usually a fellow cleric and a layman—who are permitted to accompany cardinals into the conclave enclosure as aides. Only two cardinals are expected to be absent when the conclave begins this week. Both Aloysius Cardinal Stepinac, Primate of Yugoslavia, and Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty, Primate of Hungary, will stay away from Rome for the same good reason: Stepinac is under house arrest, Mindszenty a refugee in the U.S. legation in Budapest. And even if they could get to Rome, their governments would deny them reentry.

Not only the cardinals were busy with last-minute preparations. Bricklayers and carpenters were hard at work blocking off the north wing of the Apostolic Palace and partitioning it into small apartments; a tailor was stitching up papal robes in three sizes; cooks were laying in supplies to feed the participants in the elections.

There were some disturbing notes. The stove in which the papal ballots are burned (with damp straw to make dark smoke as a signal to the outside world that no decision has been reached) was nowhere to be found, and a new one had to be bought and installed in the Sistine Chapel. The tailor who had made the robes of Pius XII publicly complained that he was robbed by Vatican officials of his traditional right to make the first robes of the new Pope. The late Pope’s personal physician, Professor Galeazzi-Lisi, was denounced by the Rome Medical Association for selling intimate details of the Pope’s last hours to newspapers (he also called a press conference at which he showed photographs, some in color, of the Pope’s body in various stages of the embalming process).

Bread & Water. But such matters will be forgotten when the cardinals and their conclavists retire this Saturday to their sealed-off quarters. Then, just before the last door is double-locked, the Prefect of the Masters of Ceremonies and the architect responsible for designing the temporary accommodations will search the entire conclave area—opening closets, pulling aside draperies—to make sure no unauthorized person is there, while an aide calls loudly at ten-minute intervals “Ex-eant omnes!” to warn anyone not participating in the conclave to leave.

When the balloting finally begins, the cardinals seated on their thrones in the Sistine Chapel fill out their ballots, then rise in order of seniority and carry them in plain view to the altar, where they place them on a plate from which they tip them into a gold chalice. Each cardinal thereupon drops to his knees before the altar and swears: “I take to witness Christ our Lord, who is to judge me, that I hereby vote for him who, before God, I feel should be elected.”

When all ballots are in and counted, three cardinals acting as “scrutators” examine them. The third scrutator reads each name aloud, while the cardinals keep tally. The necessary majority: two-thirds, plus one.

The days when papal elections dragged on interminably are over. The famed indecision of the cardinals at Viterbo lasted three years, and they elected Pope Gregory X in 1271 only after the mayor of the town had the roof of their building torn off and put the cardinals themselves on bread and water. It was Gregory X who then originated the conclave, which in his version had all the cardinals locked in one room for sleeping, eating and conferring. After three days they got only one dish per meal, after the eighth day only bread, water and a small ration of wine.

But it will probably be only some day next week when a cardinal stands on the Vatican balcony and announces to the jubilant crowds in St. Peter’s Square: “Habemus Papam”—”We have a Pope.”