Later today, the College of Cardinals will walk in solemn procession from the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace to the Sistine Chapel to begin the conclave that will elect the next successor of Saint Peter. How long it will take for them to do so, how long until we see white smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel’s famous chimney, only God knows.
This is the seventh conclave in my lifetime. Most people in the world are younger than I, and most are probably less close followers of Church affairs than I am. For many, therefore, their main image of what happens in a conclave is based on the recent hit movie Conclave, based in turn on the 2016 best selling novel by Robert Harris. I personally enjoyed both the book and the movie – apart from the ridiculous surprise ending. That said, fiction is fiction. The conclave that starts today is the real thing, not a movie or novel.
The movie is, however, a good primer on the ceremonial side of the conclave, effectively highlighting the extreme seriousness and solemnity of the process. This is, of course, in conspicuous contrast to the increasing unseriousness of almost everything in the secular world nowadays. Serious and solemn indeed is that formula each cardinal recites as he casts his vote: I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one whom I believe should be elected according to God. Solemn and serious too is the setting, the Sistine Chapel facing Michelangelo’s fresco of the Last Judgment!
At the same time the movie and book do also highlight the fundamental fact that these are real people making this decision – real people who, in spite of all they have in common as faithful Catholics and Cardinals, do come into the conclave with different different personalities, backgrounds, ideas, and desires, and so may actually disagree.
That is important to remember because, although we invoke the help of the Holy Spirit – and the Cardinals themselves will very explicitly and visibly do so – still it is they, not the Holy Spirit, who will pick the Pope. As Pope Benedict XVI famously observed « there are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit would obviously have not picked. I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined. »
In the end, that is an important assurance. Christ’s promise to his apostles, behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age [Matthew 28:20] and to Peter in particular, upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it [Matthew 16:18], remain the assurance we rely upon in this challenging moment of transition.
Photo: White Smoke from the Sistine Chapel announcing the election of Pope Francis, March 13 2013.
