How does the conclave vote to choose the new Pope?

CNN Español
—

With the death of Pope Francis, the centennial, solemn and secret tradition to choose the new leader of the Catholic Church that now begins: the conclave was launched. This event brings together a group of cardinals from around the world, who are locked in the Sistine chapel with the only mission of choosing the new Pope.

More than 1.4 billion Catholics and the rest of the world will be possibly pending for several days of the small chimney of the Sistine Chapel, which will indicate with the white smoke the moment when the 133 cardinals have chosen the new Pontiff.

The conclave follows strict norms established in the “Universi Dominici Gregis”. Here we explain step by step how the voting process that has marked the course of the Catholic Church for hundreds of years has marked.

The “Universi Dominici Gregis”, the Apostolic Constitution written by Pope John Paul II in 1996, establishes a regulation on how the voting process works and is divided into three phases during which ballots are distributed and select the roles that the cardinals will have in the vote, the votes are emitted and counted and, finally, they are verified.

Only cardinals under 80 can vote at the time the headquarters is vacant. This year 135 cardinals are eligible to participate in the election. However, at least two cardinals have revealed that they will not be present: there will be 133. It is known that cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, who previously served as a archbishop of Valencia between 2014 and 2022, said he cannot travel to the Vatican for health reasons.

During the prior phase to scrutiny, teachers of ceremonies prepare and distribute “at least two or three” ballots to each cardinal voter.

Then, nine names will be raffled from among the cardinals to act as awarding during each session.

This will happen once in the morning and another in the afternoon.

The roles are:

Every day up to four votes can be made (two in the morning and two in the afternoon). The vote is done in writing and is anonymous. Each cardinal writes the name of their candidate on a ballot, which bends and deposits personally in an urn on the altar.

The “Universi Dominici Gregis” establishes that “the ballot must be rectangular and must carry in the upper half, printed if possible, the words Pick up the highest pontiff (“I choose as Supreme Pontiff”).

Juan Pablo’s conclave manual also details that “in the lower half there must be a space to write the name of the chosen person; thus, the ballot is done in such a way that it can be folded in two.”

Each cardinal “will write in a legible way, as far as possible with a calligraphy that cannot be identified as theirs, the name of the person who chooses, taking care not to write other names too.”

The “Universi Dominici Gregis” establishes that each cardinal must sustain the ballot, once he has written the name and bent it, taking it to the altar.

On the altar, where the three scrutineers are standing, “a container is placed, covered by a dish, to receive the ballots.”

“Upon arriving at the altar, the cardinal voter says aloud the words of the following oath: I call as a witness the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who, before God, I believe that he must be chosen.”

The cardinal “then places the ballot on the plate, with which she drops her into the container. Having done this, she leans before the altar and returns to her place.”

“After all the ballots of the voter cardinals are placed in the container, the first scrutador agitates it several times to mix them.”

Once all cardinals have deposited their ballots in the urn to be mixed, the scrutine cardinals tell them and read aloud.

The first scrutinner “Take a ballot, unfold the name of the chosen person and pass the ballot to the second scrutador, who in turn scores the name of the chosen person and passes the ballot to the third, who reads it out loud and clear.”

It also reads out loud so that the cardinals in the chapel can record the vote on a sheet of paper.

“When all ballots have been open, the scrutineers add up to the number of votes obtained by the different names and write them down on a different sheet of paper.”

The last scrutator drills each with a needle through the word ‘Eligo’ and places it in a thread.

“After the names have been read, the ends of the thread are tied in a knot, and the ballots thus bound are placed in a container or one side of the table.”

After finishing the vote, the scrutineers add all the votes that each cardinal has received during the session, either the morning or afternoon.

Whatever the result, the reviewers must “verify both the ballots and the notes made by the scrutineers, to ensure that the latter have performed their task in an exact and faithful way.”

For a candidate to be elected Pope, he must obtain at least a two -thirds majority of the votes.

Then, the ballots are burned in a stove and a chemical will be added that will give color to the smoke depending on the result. If there were no choice those waiting in the Plaza de San Pedro Verán Humo Negro. But if a new Pope was chosen, the smoke that will leave the chimney of the Sistine Chapel will be white.

Once the Pope is chosen, a cardinal looks out to the balcony of the Basilica of San Pedro and pronounces the famous phrase: “Pope” (“We have Pope”), followed by the name chosen by the new Pontiff.