Pope Francis and Electing the Bishop of Rome

By Sean M. Wright

n April 21, 2025, Monday in the Octave of Easter, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the first American to serve as Camerlengo of the Apostolic Chamber, solemnly announced the death of Pope Francis, Bishop of Rome. 

Jorge Bergoglio, former Cardinal-Archbishop of Buenos Aries, Argentina, the first man from the Southern Hemisphere, first from the Americas to be elected pope, died at the age of 88. He was also the first member of the Jesuit order to assume the mantle of St Peter when elected to replace Pope Benedict XVI, when he resigned in March, 2013. Readers may be interested to know that Cardinal Bergoglio was mentioned as a candidate for the papacy in 2005 as well.   

Pope Francis, always his own man, attracted attention by ignoring several traditions. He carried his own luggage, paid his own bills, and wore plain black shoes instead of the red papal slippers. 

With the number of cardinal-electors set at 120 (since raised to 140), the makeshift system of lean-tos, tents and cubicles which used to be erected around the Sistine Chapel became unfeasible. Pope St. John Paul II, therefore, built Domus Sanctae Marthae as lodgings for cardinals involved in the papal conclaves, being shuttled to and from the conclave. Between elections the “Domus” serves as a temporary residence for bishops making their ad limina visits every five years to the Supreme Pontiff to discuss the state of the Church in their dioceses. 

Having the modern amenities of what is considered a 5-star hotel adjacent to St Peter’s, Pope Francis refused to live in the drafty, centuries-old Apostolic Palace, appearing there only when diplomatically necessary. Instead, he remodeled a few rooms in the modern Sanctae Martae to make them into a climate controlled papal suite and chapel.  

Pope Francis created cardinals in an unprecedented manner, choosing men sharing his own vision of the Church, rather than following the tradition of raising archbishops in certain longstanding cardinalatial sees. Suffragan and auxiliary bishops were created cardinals, causing some confusion since their canonical superiors, metropolitans or local ordinaries, remained bishops or archbishops.   

In daily life, Pope Francis favored wearing the white soutane in public. He refused the mozetta, a red satin or velvet shoulder cape. He donned the heavy, wide, embroidered papal stole only when demanded by protocol or sacramentality. The pope would then doff the stole as soon as he could, as he preferred not to wear anything reminiscent of earthly royalty. 

Liturgically, Pope Francis generally shunned elaborate vestments. He seldom wore any other miter save a simple white one with a vertical stripe, as he had worn in Buenos Aires. 

Just a few months ago, Pope Francis determined that he would be buried in a single wooden coffin and not in the traditional three coffins made of cypress, lead and oak. His body was placed in that coffin for mourners to view at St. Peter’s Basilica. 

Neither was his body placed in the grottoes under St. Peter’s Basilica with so many of those of his predecessors. Instead, he was laid to rest at St. Mary Major, the oldest church in Rome devoted to the Blessed Virgin.  

The last public words of Pope Francis was to call out to the crowd, “Buona Pasqua!”— Happy Easter!

And now the Church is in the interregnum, the period between pontificates, the “sede vacante,” when “the chair is vacant.” The vast machinery of the Vatican once again prepares to grind out the particulars of a papal election. 

Per the reform of the ritual promulgated by Pope Francis last November, the head of the Vatican health service examined the body to ascertain the cause of death. His body was dressed in white and laid out in his personal chapel for the ritual pronouncement of death. 

This was done by Cardinal Farrell, as Camerlengo, who runs the Holy See between the death of one pope and the election of another. He called out the pope’s baptismal name “Jorge” three times. Receiving no answer, Cardinal Farrell certified that Francis was dead. 

The ceremonial tapping of the pope’s forehead three times with a silver hammer has not taken place for more than a century. St. John Paul II’s death was certified by an ECG. 

The Camerlengo has sealed the pope’s apartments to protect the confidentiality of his papers, and in the presence of other cardinals, he defaced the Ring of the Fisherman and the pope’s leaden seal to prevent any kind of fraud.    

During his funeral, the body of Pope Francis, like those of his predecessors, wore a bishop’s miter and was vested as if for Mass. The vestments were red, the liturgical color symbolizing fire and blood, indicating the pope’s direct connection to St. Peter and the apostles who were enflamed by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and died as martyrs for love of Jesus. 

News outlets have sent reporters, cameramen, sound technicians and other crew members to Rome in anticipation of the election of the next pope. During the last election in 2013, over 4200 journalists from all over the world descended on Rome and Vatican City.  

The Camerlengo has summoned all the 135 voting members of the Sacred College of Cardinals to Vatican City, where they will stay at the Domus Sanctae Marthae. All are attached to churches in the city of Rome. It is as members of the Roman clergy they will elect the Bishop of Rome who is, by virtue of succeeding St. Peter in that office, the earthly head of the Catholic Church. 

The term “conclave” comes from the Latin phrase “cum clavus,” which means “with a key.” The cardinals are locked up, kept away from the cares of the world, until they make an election. Voting will take place twice a day, morning and afternoon. It takes 2/3 of the votes for someone to be elected.

The origin of the conclave began with the papal election of 1268-1271, the longest interregnum in Church history. In 1257, political unrest in Rome caused the papal court to flee to Viterbo, another city in the Papal States. 

In 1268, Clement IV died and the 23 cardinals, torn by familial and political infighting, were unable to settle on a candidate. A year passed. The Viterbese, tired of feeding and lodging the electors and their attendants, convinced the city magistrates to allow them to lock them into the church adjoining the papal palace; nothing happened. Food was rationed; nothing happened. The roof was removed and townspeople yelled down to the cardinals that they were helping the Holy Spirit get through to them. 

Nothing happened until it rained. Teobaldo Visconti, an archdeacon on crusade, was elected, taking the name Gregory X. Convening the Second Council of Lyon, Gregory made the conclave mandatory. With occasional modifications, the conclave rules remain in effect. Gregory X was beatified in 1713 by Pope Clement XI.

(Sean M. Wright, MA, award-winning journalist, Emmy nominee, and Master Catechist for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, is a parishioner at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Santa Clarita. He answers comments at Locksley69@aol.com.)