St. Peter’s Square was bustling on Wednesday morning despite the gray clouds trickling occasional raindrops over Vatican City. Massive television screens were placed under statues of Sts. Peter and Paul. More displays extend down the Via della Conciliazione. Thousands will use these screens to monitor the impending papal conclave, standing too far from St. Peter’s Basilica to see the chimney smoke or new pontiff appear.
At 10:00 a.m., the sound system kicked on and filled the square with a feed of angelic hymns being sung inside the basilica. On the screens, onlookers witnessed almost 200 cardinals in blood-red robes and white mitres proceed through the two-football-field-long church — the color of their robes symbolizing their duty to die for the faith and their bifurcated hats marking their dignity as prelates.
It was the Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice Mass (Latin: For the election of the Roman pontiff) — the final liturgical celebration before the conclave begins Wednesday afternoon.
“To pray, by invoking the Holy Spirit, is the only right and proper attitude to take as the
cardinal electors prepare to undertake an act of the highest human and ecclesial responsibility and to
make a choice of exceptional importance,” Cardinal Giovanni Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, said in the homily. “This is a human act for which every personal consideration must be set aside, keeping in mind and heart only the God of Jesus Christ and the good of the church and of humanity.”
Re, 91, is over the 80-year age limit for cardinal electors and is therefore unable to participate.
During his homily, he urged the voting-age cardinals to remember Jesus Christ’s “message of love” that “must characterize the thoughts and actions of all his disciples, who must always show authentic love in their behavior and commit themselves to building a new civilization.”
“Let us pray, then, that the Holy Spirit, who in the last hundred years has given us a series of
truly holy and great pontiffs, will give us a new pope according to God’s heart for the good of the
church and of humanity,” Re said. “Let us pray that God will grant the church a pope who knows how best to awaken the consciences of all and the moral and spiritual energies in today’s society, characterized by great technological progress but which tends to forget God.”
Soon, the cardinals will walk to the Sistine Chapel, the doors locking behind them as the conclave to elect the 267th bishop of Rome begins.
The princes of the church have spent the last two weeks holding court over dinner and cigarettes, discussing candidates and whispering strategies in the back rooms of the Vatican apartments.
Kingmakers among their ranks have positioned front-runners, and nonvoting cardinals have offered speeches about their vision of the church heading into the next decade. That temporal politicking has come to an end. From now on, the ballots cast will be between the College of Cardinals and the Lord Almighty.
For a candidate to be elected to sit upon the Holy See, a two-thirds majority of votes is required. In this conclave, that magic number is 89.
On the first day, cardinals will vote once. It is highly unlikely this will result in a winner. On each subsequent day, the cardinals will vote twice in the morning and twice in the evening.
The votes will be checked and checked again to prevent tampering. Internet and wireless signals will be jammed for the duration of the conclave to ensure no outside influence can infiltrate the election.
There is perhaps no more iconic scene in the political history of Europe than the red clerics seated solemnly beneath Michelangelo’s frescos that adorn the interior of the chapel. Looking above them, they can see the Creation of the Heavens and Earth, the Creation of Adam and Eve, and the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
During each round of voting, electors will approach the ballot box and be forced to gaze up at the Renaissance master’s rendition of the Last Judgement — the final and eternal judgement of each person’s soul at the end of times.
At the center of the painting is a stoic Christ who gazes upon all humankind and passes his verdicts as promised in the Gospel of Matthew, separating the righteous from the wicked “as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”
On Christ’s left, the damned are ripped from the skies and pulled down into an abyss with the burning mouth of hell visible in the distance. To the messiah’s right, the righteous arise from their graves and ascend toward the cross and the beatific vision of paradise.
The symbolism is not discreet. These men hold in their hands the fate of the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. To cast their ballot with anything but pure intentions is to betray their God and invite a gruesome perdition upon themselves.
With the threat of damnation standing before them, the voting cardinal then invokes this weighing of their soul by reciting: “I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one whom I believe should be elected according to God.”
The electors will stay locked behind closed doors for as long as it takes to choose the next pope. In recent history, that has taken anywhere between one day and a week. The process might take slightly longer this time as the geographically disparate cardinals face a clear lack of cohesion in their vision for the future of the Catholic Church.
Cutting-edge video cameras will relay the results directly to viewers at home through medieval technology — smoke signals from the chapel chimney. Black smoke means a vote failed to reach the threshold, and white smoke announces a new pope has been decided.
SISTINE CHAPEL PREPPED FOR CONCLAVE AS BATTLE LINES ARE DRAWN FOR FUTURE OF CATHOLIC CHURCH
Legacy media outlets have done their best to characterize this conclave as a battle between the “Left” and the “Right,” “progressives” versus “conservatives.”
The reality is that papal politics cannot be grafted onto the superficial spectrum of temporal politics. For every culture war issue, such as sexuality, abortion, immigration, or capital punishment, there is a liturgical or theological concern to be considered, such as lay involvement in the church, synodality, and effective witness to the Gospel.
Graphing the cardinals’ opinions on all these considerations is nearly impossible, a fact that frustrates outside commentators approaching the election as if it were a secular government.
The cardinals are not looking for a president or prime minister. They are seeking the next Vicar of Christ on Earth — a shepherd who can unite, evangelize, and defend the people of God.
As Re noted in his homily, the Holy Spirit is believed to lend itself to aiding their choices and guiding their consciences. Whether the electors decide to listen and obey will be their choice.
Christ will be watching them, not the painted image at the back of the chapel, but the incarnate God that they devoted their lives to serving.
When their race is run and they are judged, this moment will not go unconsidered.