Papal election: How was it done in the past?

FILE – A giant monitor in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Tuesday, March 12, 2013 shows the heavy wooden door to the Sistine Chapel being closed and locked, signaling the start of the conclave to elect a new pope to succeed Benedict XVI following his stunning resignation. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

The forthcoming conclave remains a pressing matter for cardinals, who began arriving last week for the funeral of Pope Francis. The election of the next Vicar of Christ is one hot-button issue in social media that goes into overdrive.

How did the conclave begin?

In the modern world, it is providential to witness the Catholic Church having a more precise way of doing things than centuries ago.

A papal conclave, following a strict canonical procedure, takes its natural course after the death of a pope and the election. Voilà, conclave today is as clear as seeing black or white smoke coming out of the chimney.

Papal election during the ancient Church

It was not so in the past. After Emperor Theodosius I (reigned 379-395) made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire, the Christian Roman emperors became influential in the governance of the Church affairs.

For many centuries, they often took part in the selection or approval of a new pope and at times their unsolicited influence in ecclesiastical matters was intolerable. The first seven ecumenical councils from 325 to 787 AD were all convoked by emperors. That’s a fact and, during the same period, the Roman emperors and later the kings of Italy interfered in the selection and approval of the papal succession.

As centuries went by, the story of the nomination, appointment and consecration of the total 155 popes from St. Peter to Nicholas II (reigned 1059-1061) slowly became cumbersome, not to say, complicated.

Papal elections until St. Nicholas II received numerous shapes and forms through a period of a thousand years. Not to forget was the incredible choice of a simple layman as Bishop of Rome in the person of St. Fabian (reigned 236-250), 19th successor of St. Peter, pope and martyr.

“Although present,” penned the 4th-century author Eusebius of Caesarea, Fabian “was in the mind of none.” As the bishops were considering the names of a few papabile, or papal candidates, from out of nowhere a white dove came and perched on Fabian’s head, which they believed was a sign from the Holy Spirit. They readily selected him and installed him as the new pope.

Four ancient ways of selecting the pope

By and large, the absence of canon law regarding this matter and the non-existence of a standard operating procedure (SOP) of papal succession after the death of a pope facilitated factionalism within the corridors of power in the Church. Bishops today are polarized. Well, they were too in the past, not to mention the schisms and the simultaneous presence of several papal claimants and antipopes.

The affairs of the papal selection in the Middle Ages were woefully disorganized. The popes were chosen via four various ways: 1) by appointment of his predecessor; 2) by direct imperial selection; 3) by selection done by the Roman clergy; and 4) by being elected by the general population.

First, a pope was appointed by his predecessor, like how Peter appointed Clement I, his first successor, and how Gregory VII elected Victor III as his successor in 1085. Victor, in like manner, named Urban II in 1086, and Urban III chose Paschal II in 1099. As simple as that.

The second way was when the emperor directly nominated and appointed a pope or when the emperor finally approved the papal selection done by the predecessor or by the Roman clergy. The emperor, in short, had the final say. That happened exactly when the Roman Emperor Henry III installed the three successors to Pope Leo IX (1049-54), all of them Germans, without the formality of an election.

Third, a pope was elected by the Roman clergy. Stephen III (reigned 768-772) decreed that the Roman clergy should elect the pope but later restricted the eligibility for election to the cardinal-priests and cardinal-deacons only.

The fourth way was when a pope was elected by the Roman lay aristocracy and/or general population that regained and maintained its participation in the papal selection until 1059. John V (reigned 685-686) returned to the “ancient practice” by being elected by the general Christian population after receiving an imperial endorsement.

It should be mentioned, however, that no popes nominated or appointed, with the exception of Peter’s personal appointment of Clement I, ever presumed to declare themselves popes before being ratified by the “acceptable” legal electors of the time. Therefore, it goes without saying that the legitimacy of the 2,000-year-long papal selection, with dozens of antipopes in between, makes Francis the 265th successor of St. Peter and therefore the 266th Bishop of Rome.

Electoral reforms and the papal conclave

Ecclesia semper reformanda est, and, in 1059, St. Nicholas II (reigned 1059-1061) called for a Roman Synod to consider a number of reforms, including a major change in the election procedure. To do this, he brought in 113 bishops from different nations to Rome, with the goal in mind that the electoral reform they adopted would amount to a declaration of independence on the part of the Church from imperial and secular intervention.

Emperor Henry IV saw the wisdom in this and allowed Nicholas II to promulgate In Nomine Domini in 1059. In this papal bull, the Holy Father asserted with clarity that the cardinals should be the sole electors of the pope.

The following verse served as a clarion call for great renovations in the papal election process: “Churchmen shall be the leaders in carrying on the election of a pope, the others merely followers.”

As earlier noted, the 1059 procedures of the papal conclave were in large part designed to stave off the external interference of the Roman aristocracy and secular rulers that characterized the first millennium of Christianity. At the same time, the procedures were established to put an end to the internal squabbles within the hierarchy when the death of a reigning pope was officially announced.

The papal bull In Nomine Domini of 1059 restricted the electorate to the cardinals, with the Roman clergy and laity retaining the right to formally acclaim the cardinals’ choice. It also directed that the place of papal election should be in Rome, “unless outside influences would make this impossible.”

The year 1059 heralded a standard operating procedure (SOP) for a papal election through cardinal electors, an internal system that was continuously modified and perfected through the succeeding centuries.

Even with In Nomine Domini in place, the external interference of secular rulers persisted for two more centuries until the conclave of 1268 happened. The aristocrats did not want to give up their authority in the “lay investiture.”

Because lay investiture meant a lot of power, they did not want to surrender it. In 1120, a peaceful compromise was arranged between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V and Pope Calixtus II regarding this controversy.

After the death of Clement IV in 1268, the cardinals met at the papal palace at Viterbo, Italy, to choose the next pope. Picture the super-tense situation. Due to the political pressures coming from persistent secular leaders, the squabbling electors failed to choose a successor. The overly extended selection was stalled, and the Church was popeless for three long years.

The Latin words cum clave means ‘with key’

It was decided that the cardinal-electors should be “secured,” with “marshals of the conclave” appointed to prevent them from leaving. The cardinal-electors were padlocked “with key” from the outside until they performed their duties of selecting a papal successor. Since then, the practice became known as a papal conclave (from Latin cum clave, “with key”), by which the cardinal-electors were locked up.

In passing, we say that the pope did not need to be a cardinal elector or indeed a cardinal, that any male baptized Catholic was eligible, and that, since the pope is the Bishop of Rome, he should be ordained as bishop before the election is announced to the people.

The last to be elected who was not a cardinal was Urban VI in 1378, and the last who was not a bishop was Gregory XVI in 1831. The last to be elected who was not even a priest was Leo X in 1513.

José Mario Bautista Maximiano is the lead convenor of the Love Our Pope Movement (LOPM) and author of the book Church Reforms 3: The Synodal Legacy of Pope Francis (Claretian, 2025). Church Reforms 1 and Church Reforms 2 are available on Lazada and Shopee. Email: [email protected]