The reign of Pope Francis is over, and as the Catholic Church mourns his death, it is also looking to the future. Soon after Saturday’s funeral, a papal conclave must be held to choose his successor, and the question now turns to which man — and it will be a man, as women cannot be ordained priests in the Catholic Church — will emerge and step onto the balcony in papal regalia to greet the crowds massed in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.
Below is a look inside the conclave process, with a step-by-step breakdown of how the next pope will be chosen and anointed under Michelangelo’s iconic fresco on the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.
What is the papal conclave, exactly?
The papal conclave is the closely-guarded gathering of the cardinal electors — all serving cardinals under the age of 80 — to elect the next pope.
The exact number varies, but there are currently about 135 cardinal electors who will convene at the Vatican from around the world to choose the successor to Pope Francis.
Of those eligible this time around, a large majority — 108 of them — were appointed by Pope Francis during his 12-year papacy. They come from 71 different countries; 10 are from the United States.
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When will the papal conclave begin?
The Vatican has not yet announced the date when the conclave will begin, but under church rules, it must be within 15 to 20 days after the pope’s death, which in this case would fall in the first or second week of May.
How does the papal conclave work?
How this assembly proceeds to choose the next pope is a process that dates back hundreds of years — an intricate, choreographed procession of rituals and ballots.
On the first day of the papal conclave, the cardinal electors will shut themselves off from the outside world and begin the momentous task of choosing — likely from among their own ranks — the man who will become the 267th Bishop of Rome, better known as the pope.
On Day One, the cardinals celebrate a morning Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. In the afternoon, they walk in a solemn procession into the Sistine Chapel, which will have undergone a security sweep to check for any illicit recording devices before their arrival.
For centuries, the cardinal electors were physically locked inside the Sistine Chapel until they elected a new pontiff, left to eat and sleep beneath Michelangelo’s vivid Renaissance masterpiece. These days, they do leave to rest and share meals at Santa Marta House — a hotel-like residence inside Vatican City where Francis had his own personal apartment during his pontificate — for however many days it takes them to come to a decision.
Once the cardinals have all filed into the chapel, its great bronze doors are dramatically closed and sealed, and the first day’s voting begins.
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How does the voting for a new pope work?
The cardinals will have already discussed the merits of each papal prospect during days of “general congregations” at the Vatican before the conclave, but now the voting begins. Choosing the new pope requires not just a majority, but a two-thirds plus-one vote among the cardinal electors for a candidate to win. Pope Benedict XVI, who led the church prior to Francis, raised the threshold and enshrined the two-thirds requirement into church law two days before he stepped down.
Each cardinal must swear an oath of absolute secrecy before they vote. If they disclose any information from within the conclave they will be excommunicated by the church.
To vote, each cardinal writes their chosen candidate’s name on a ballot, disguising his handwriting, then walks to an altar at the front of the chapel and deposits the paper onto a ceremonial plate. He then tips the ballot from the plate into a chalice-urn.
As they are counted and the handwritten entries recorded by three cardinals at the altar, known as scrutineers, the ballots are deposited into another urn.
A third urn, made of gilded bronze and silver and adorned with Christian imagery, is used to ferry ballots from any cardinals too ill to leave their sleeping quarters to the chapel for counting.
After the first vote is held on the first afternoon, the cardinals’ ballots are placed into one of two small ovens inside the Sistine Chapel and burned. A plume of smoke flows up a chimney and into the air over St. Peter’s Square, watched for eagerly by the faithful, and the world’s media.
If that round of voting yields no winner, the smoke will be black — a sign to the world that the Holy See remains vacant.
How long can a conclave last?
The voting process will repeat itself the following day, with the cardinals holding two ballots in the morning and two in the afternoon. If the morning sessions are inconclusive, black smoke will be seen again around lunchtime — early morning on the U.S. East Coast.
If there’s still no winner following the afternoon votes, more black smoke will stream into the early evening Roman sky.
If there’s no two-thirds majority after three days, voting is paused for a day to allow time for prayer, discussion and a “brief spiritual exhortation” by the senior cardinal in the Order of Deacons.
Then the voting process resumes. A conclave will last until enough of the cardinal electors agree on a choice for the next pope.
How long has it taken to choose a new pope in the past?
The longest conclave in history was the one that brought Pope Gregory X to the papacy in 1281. It lasted almost three years from the time the cardinals first began their voting.
Recent conclaves, however, have lasted just days. Pope John Paul II needed eight ballots, over two days, to become the pontiff in 1978. His successor, Benedict XVI, was chosen on the fourth ballot, after two days, in 2005.
Francis, in 2013, needed a mere five ballots, with the voting taking just 24 hours.
What will happen once the conclave chooses the next pope?
When enough cardinals agree on a candidate and the vote reaches the two-thirds-plus-one threshold, the chosen man is asked if he accepts the role. He will acknowledge by simply saying the word for “I accept” in Latin: “Accepto.”
At that point, he becomes the new pope and will state his chosen pontifical name before the assembled cardinals. The most common papal name has been John, used 21 times. Others, including Simplicius, Hilarius and Zosimus, have only ever been used once. Pope Francis was also the first to choose his papal name.
The ballots are then burned in the stove, but this time, a chemical additive is left out to create the much-anticipated plume of “fumata bianca,” white smoke.
There has been confusion during some past conclaves over the color of the smoke rising over the chapel, so two conclaves ago, in 2005, a new tradition began. In addition to the white smoke, bells now chime, heralding the news that the Roman Catholic Church has a new leader.
The new pope then immediately goes into a chamber adjoining the Sistine Chapel to be clad in the papal robes.
As the faithful and the curious crowd into St. Peter’s Square below, the cardinal deacon steps out onto the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to introduce the new pontiff with the famous phrase, “Habemus papa” — We have a pope.
Finally, the new leader of the Catholic Church emerges into the spotlight to deliver his first blessing.
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