News from Italy
The Origin of the Cardinals’ Locking Tradition
by Alessandro Romano
On Wednesday, May 7, the great wooden doors of the Sistine Chapel were once again closed and locked. In this exclusive meeting, 133 red-robed cardinals took their oaths of secrecy. They voted in seclusion for the next Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church in a ritual known as the papal Conclave, a tradition that has been a cornerstone of the Church for centuries.
With the death of Pope Francis, the seat of the Vatican President and the leader of the Catholic world remained vacant. The Cardinals, also known as “princes” chosen by the Pope, and the Sistine Chapel, where the voting takes place, came to the fore. The cardinals, the highest-ranking officials in the Catholic Church after the Pope, will elect a new Pope from among themselves. They will be locked in the Sistine Chapel until the voting is concluded, and their relations with the outside world will be cut off completely. No form of communication from the outside will be allowed into the voting hall. But why are the Cardinals, who are at the highest rank in the Church hierarchy, locked? What is the secret of these doors?
For nearly 750 years, cardinals have been choosing the Pope in a locked-down meeting, completely isolated from the outside world. All cardinals eligible to vote and everyone else involved in the sealed meeting (a small number of cooks, medical staff, etc., locked up with the electors) are sworn to secrecy and not to discuss what happened without the Pope’s permission. The penalty for violating this oath is the Church’s most severe punishment: excommunication or permanent separation from Church life.
For the first thousand years of Christianity, the Catholic Church elected popes in two ways. Either a jubilant Roman crowd elected the next spiritual leader of the Catholics, or a group of local clergy and powerful families gathered to make an election.
The Latin term “Conclave” means “locked up.” The cardinals were locked up until a new Pope was elected. This locking tradition began in Viterbo, about two hours by train from Rome.
The radical key decision of the people of Viterbo
In the 13th century, Rome was in political chaos. Competition existed between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Political turmoil and violence were rife, and society was restless. The papal see had moved there to escape the battlefield that Rome had become because of the war between the Guelph and Ghibelline families.
When Pope Clement IV died in 1268, 19 of the 20 cardinals gathered in Viterbo to elect a new Pope; however, the cardinals had difficulty agreeing on a name because of their allegiance to the competing parties and the interference of political forces.
Of the 20 cardinals summoned, Rudolph of Albano died before the voting began. Therefore, there were only 19 electors who were divided into two factions, more political than religious: about seven ‘Carolinians’, almost all French, who supported Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily and Naples, and about ten ‘Imperials’, nearly all Italian, who supported the Holy Roman Empire.
From November 29, 1268, the 19 cardinals met once daily to vote in the cathedral of Viterbo without either faction giving in.
A year after deliberations began, the cardinals were meeting less regularly to vote, and the process was at a standstill. Supporting the cardinals and their entourage was ruining the city. Taxes had to be raised, and the population was threatening an uprising.
This indecision caused a reaction. The people of Viterbo, who had been supporting the cardinals, decided to take matters into their own hands to end the deadlock.
Led by the city’s Captain Raniero Gatti, they locked the cardinals first in the papal palace, known locally as the Palazzo dei Papi (Palace of the Popes), and then in the hall called the Sala de Conclave.
There the word ‘Conclave’ (cum clave, with key, or simply locked) was born. It was also decided to simplify the menu of their eminences, so that the cost would not be so onerous for the city’s coffers.
Without a roof and living on bread and water
But the cardinals refused to give in, and the blockade continued, so in the summer of 1270, the city decided to go further. The roof was removed from the bedrooms and the deliberation room of the palace, “so that the Holy Spirit may enlighten you,” and the diet of the electors was reduced to bread and water. Around that time, the Cardinal of Ostia renounced his right to vote and left Viterbo in poor health. There were 18 electors left. The poor conditions affected the health of more cardinals. Stefan Vancza, the first Hungarian cardinal in history, and Giordano dei Conti, papal vice-chancellor, fell ill and died. There were 16 left.
After a year in these conditions, and fearing that none would get out alive, the 16 decided to elect six, three from each faction, to choose a candidate with the blessing of the remaining ten. On September 1, 1271, they proposed a name as surprising as the whole process: Theobald Bisconti, neither a cardinal nor in the Conclave. He was in the Holy Land, in Acre, fighting in the Ninth Crusade. On March 27, 1272, he was crowned Pope in St. Peter’s Basilica as Gregory X.
Pope Gregory X made a new arrangement to prevent this tragic situation from happening again. In 1274, the Church added the Conclave to the official rules for papal elections: from now on, the cardinals would remain locked in until they elected the next Catholic leader.
In 1274, Pope Gregory X at the Second Council of Lyon issued the apostolic constitution Ubi periculum, which decreed that cardinals be locked incommunicado, without luxuries or distractions, to facilitate a swift papal election, free from external influences. The first official Conclave that followed this principle was in 1276, with the election of Pope Innocent V.
Over the centuries, significant reforms were made to the papal Conclave, including Gregory XV’s use of secret and written ballots in 1621, Pius X’s enforced secrecy of the papal election even after it was over in 1904, and Paul VI’s decree that only cardinals under 80 years old may vote in 1970. But despite its numerous evolutions, the principle of seclusion remained the same.
Throughout its history, papal conclaves have also been conducted in various locations. While most occurred in Rome, 15 happened outside the Eternal City, and two were held outside Italy, according to the Vatican.
Today, the Conclave is inside the Sistine Chapel, beneath Michelangelo’s famed fresco of the Last Judgment. Since 1996, the chapel has been officially declared the official location for the Pope’s election under the Universi Dominici Gregis, the Apostolic Constitution that Pope St. John Paul II issued.
Nel corso dei secoli, furono apportate significative riforme al Conclave papale, tra cui l’uso del voto segreto e scritto da parte di Gregorio XV nel 1621, l’imposizione della segretezza dell’elezione papale da parte di Pio X anche dopo la sua conclusione nel 1904 e il decreto di Paolo VI del 1970, secondo cui solo i cardinali di età inferiore agli 80 anni potevano votare. Ma nonostante le sue numerose evoluzioni, il principio di segretezza rimase invariato.
Nel corso della sua storia, i conclavi papali si sono svolti anche in diverse località. Mentre la maggior parte si è svolta a Roma, 15 si sono svolti fuori dalla Città Eterna e due si sono svolti fuori dall’Italia, secondo quanto dichiarato dal Vaticano.
Oggi, il Conclave si trova all’interno della Cappella Sistina, sotto il celebre affresco di Michelangelo del Giudizio Universale. Dal 1996, la cappella è stata ufficialmente dichiarata sede ufficiale per l’elezione del Papa ai sensi della Universi Dominici Gregis, la Costituzione Apostolica emanata da Papa San Giovanni Paolo II.
