So, what happens with vote #77 and they don’t have a 2/3 majority?
Take them all out and shoot them, get a new batch of Cardinals in to vote?
Papal Thunderdome - 2 Cardinals Enter, 1 Pope Leaves?
Enquiring minds want to know :dubious:
I may have misread, but I think 77 votes is the number that constitutes a 2/3 majority. The number of rounds of balloting is unlimited.
That is 100% correct.
77 is indeed 2/3 of the 115 voting Cardinals, or to be more precise the whole number above the 2/3 mark, which is 76.6666…
The process is not unlimited. They (potentially) vote four times per day, broken every couple of days by a “meditation” (=extended sermon) by the senior Cardinal Deacon, Cardinal Priest, or Cardinal Bishop*. After 30-odd votes they then move to making their choice from the two candidates who got the most votes on the previous ballot.
- While all Cardinals are Archbishops or Metropolitans (the Eastern Church equivalent), they are divided into three unequal-sized groups, named for, and derived from, their ancient parallel roles in the Diocese of Rome.
[ul]
[li]Cardinal Deacons assist the Pope, as Deacons assist a Bishop by practical work in administrative and charitable capacities, by heading up the Congregations into which the Vatican Curia is divided.[/li][li]Cardinal Priests are the largest group, the Cardinal Archbishops of Baltimore, Brussels, and Brisbane scattered throughout the world. In token of their traditional role, each is also assigned to one parish in greater Rome, where he is expected to hear confession and say Mass at least once a year if possible.[/li][li]Cardinal Bishops are seven superannuated archbishops, widely respected and deemed wise but enfeebled, given the titular cure of one of the seven “suburban sees” of Rome, the seven suffragan dioceses within the (Arch)Diocese of Rome, as a sort of retirement honorarium. They have assistants to do the hands-on bishing.[/li][/ul]
Thanks, Polycarp!
Minor nitpick, but the Western church has metropolitans, too. When a diocese is between bishops, a geographically-close archbishop will take on (or, more likely, temporarily delegate) administrative duties of the vacant diocese until the new bishop is installed, and that archbishop is referred to as a metropolitan.
What happens between votes, Polycarp mentions “meditation”, but is there any discussions on the merits of the different contenders or do they simply vote again hoping that some will change their mind without any other input?
This isn’t correct. Pope Benedict changed the rules so that the “run-off” vote isn’t a thing anymore. The Cardinals must continue to vote until a candidate gets 2/3rds.
This is not as accurate as it could be.
When a suffragan diocese is “between bishops,” there are a number of ways in which governance of the diocese is handled. You identify the very last way.
First: if there is a Co-adjutor Bishop, he takes canonical possession of the diocese. Co-adjutor Bishops have the right of succession to the role of Ordinary in dioceses to which they are assigned.
Second: when the see is vacant and there is no co-adjutor, the auxiliary bishop acts as Diocesan Administrator until one is chosen. When there is more than one Auxiliary Bishop assigned to the diocese, the senior by promotion assumes the role.
Third: when a see becomes vacant, the college of consultors must within eight days meet and choose a Diocesan Administrator (Code of Canon Law, Can. 421 ß1).
Fourth: only if the Diocesan Administrator is not chosen by the college of consultors within the prescribed time period does the archbishop of the province appoint an administrator. If the metropolitan see is itself vacant and no administrator chosen in the timeframe, the senior suffragan by promotion makes the appointment.
IIRC, after a certain number of votes, they switch to 50%+1 rule.
According to a book I read about JPI and JPII selection, basically - people start climbing in the vote as other cardinals hear the early vote and think “oh, yeah, he’d be a good pick… um, isn’t that right, Holy Ghost?”
Of course if the cardinal has been particularly obnoxious or seems overly ambitious, he will have ticked off enough people that after a few votes he stops climbing, then declines as the “Oh, yeah…” types realize he’s not going to hit 67%. Then they switch their votes to someone else. Eventually they find someone who gets a decent number of votes and is not a poor choice in the eyes of 77 cardinals, and the guy wins. (Much like political conventions used to be - and party leader votes still are in places like Canada, except nobody gets eliminated).
The “conclave”, as in “lock 'em up til they decide” came about after IIRC about 2 years of the cardinals having a good time and not coming to a decision in teh middle ages. The local mob got fed up and locked them in and told them they weren’t coming out until they had a decision. So yes, it could go forever if there is no acceptable candidate. I would suggest their definition of acceptable will become broader as time goes on if nobody wins in the early going.
Actually, Googling, I’m wrong. JPII changed the rules so that there would be a run-off between two candidates after 33 ballots, and the run-off could be decided by a simple majority. Benedict changed this back, so that a candidate can’t win without a 2/3rds majority regardless of how many ballots have been cast.
But I think Polycarp’s right about the “run-off” thing, its not super-clear from the news articles I could find, but I don’t think Benedict undid all the changes his predecessor made, and so the number of candidates still gets limited to 2 after 33 ballots even if the number of votes needed to win remains at 2/3rds
Very interesting, thanks all =)
though I still think the idea of a papal thunderdome has merits!
Of course, too, the cardinals can write whatever they want on a ballot. If it gets to two candidates and neither of the two is acceptable, and nobody’s going to get a 2/3, I’m sure 100 cardinals could agree to change the rules once they see they could be there forever.
Who counts the votes?
A group chosen by lot.
I defer to your expertise. I just know that that’s how it happened when the Diocese of Helena (western Montana) was between bishops a few years back.
Can some Catholic tell me why, if the Holy Spirit is guiding the voters, we don’t have a unanimous choice on the first ballot?
The guiding of the Holy Spirit doesn’t force the human hand, it, at most, suggests.
Because inspiration is not the same as possession or dictation. God continues to respect free-will – except in rare cases where a very clear and direct order is given (“Tell Pharaoh to let my people go.”).
So, if the Holy Spirit is telling the cardinals “chose the person you think would be best despite any differences or despite that he’s not from your country,” then that would be inspiration. We’re ‘prompted’ by the Spirit and ‘cooperate with grace’, not ordered and compelled.
It’s the same idea of the Catholic understanding of Scriptures being ‘inspired’ as found in the documents of Vatican Council II. The inspiration of the scriptural authors does not preclude errors of history, science, or the worst thing possible… errors in grammar. Scriptures is the Word of God, but it is all very much the words of human beings.
Note how this is very different from the understanding of some fundamentalist sects where there is a vague understanding of scriptures being literally dictated word by word to its authors.
I appreciate the answers, but I have to say, they are very unsatisfying. It hardly requires divine inspiration to know that you should try to pick the best man for the job, even if he’s not a paisan. I would expect no less from someone hiring a shop clerk. And I simply don’t understand how anybody could believe a source about things they can’t verify, like life after death, when the things they can verify, like historical accuracy, are clearly wrong.
But as this is GQ and not GD, I’ll have to leave it there.