Papal Info Needed Please...

[Fiat_Voluntas_Tua]

I was wondering if someone could give me some Papal info...that is how does the Papal Election process go, can a Pope 'retire' (in the same way as a priest retires)...just things like that.

Thanks, you guys are Holy Hip-hop

Andy

[StColette]

I always found this topic interesting Hope these articles help


Electing a Pope

Popes are elected by the College of Cardinals meeting in Conclave when the Apostolic See falls vacant.

Pope Paul VI significantly changed the rules for conclaves in 1975 when he promulgated the Apostolic Constitution Romano Pontifico Eligendo. He excluded all cardinals 80 years old or over from the conclave and made provision to prevent any bugging of the Sistine Chapel.

It was according to these rules that Albano Luciano, Patriarch of Venice, was elected Pope John Paul I and that a little over a month later, Karol Wojtyla, Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow, was elected Pope John Paul II.

Pope John Paul has himself now promulgated a whole new set of rules in the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis (see the full text of the Constitution).

He has not departed radically from the traditional structure. But he has made some significant changes:

if no cardinal has been elected by two-thirds majority after a certain number of ballots, the cardinals may agree by absolute majority (half + 1) to elect the Pope by an absolute majority instead of a two-thirds majority
rather than stay in uncomfortable, makeshift quarters in the Papal Palace, the Cardinals will stay in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, hotel-style accommodation in Vatican City
the only remaining method of electing the Pope is by scrutiny, ie, silent ballot -- the methods of election by acclamation and by committee have been excluded
the older cardinals are still unable to enter the conclave, but they are invited to take an active role in the preparatory meetings
the rules on secrecy are tougher
The maximum number of Cardinal Electors allowed at any one time is 120. The Pope cannot raise more than 120 men under 80 to the Cardinalate at any one time.

The Pope dies
When the Pope dies, the Cardinal Camerlengo (currently Eduardo Cardinal Martinez Somalo) must verify the death, traditionally by calling the Pope three times by his name without response. He must then authorize a death certificate and make the event public by notifying the Cardinal Vicar for the Diocese of Rome (currently Camillo Cardinal Ruini). The Camerlengo then seals the Pope's private apartments. He would also arrange for the "ring of the fisherman" and the papal seal to be broken. He then makes preparations for the Papal funeral rites, the novemdieles, the nine days of mourning.

During the interregnum, it is the Camerlengo who is responsible for the government of the Church. He must arrange the funeral and burial of the Pope. He directs the election of a new pope, assisted by three Cardinals, elected by the College of Cardinals, with three new Cardinals elected every three days.

All heads of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia are suspended from exercising their authority during the interregnum (and are expected to resign their posts immediately on the election of the new Pope). The only exceptions to this are the Cardinal Camerlengo, the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, the Major Penitentiary (William Cardinal Baum), the Cardinal Archpriest of St Peter's Basilica and the Vicar-General for Vatican City (both offices are held by Virgilio Cardinal Noe). These continue in their posts during the interregnum.

After 15-20 days of "General Congregations", sermons at their Titular Churches and mourning for the Pope after his funeral, the Cardinal Electors enter the Conclave to choose which of them will emerge as Holy Roman Pontiff.

The Cardinals must take an oath when they first enter the Conclave that they will follow the rules set down by the Pope and that they will maintain absolute secrecy about the voting and deliberations. The penalty for disclosing anything about the conclave that must be kept secret is automatic excommunication.

The Cardinals all take seats around the wall of the Sistine Chapel and take a ballot paper on which is written "Eligo in suumum pontificem" -- "I elect as supreme Pontiff...". They then write a name on it, fold it, and then proceed one by one to approach the altar, where a chalice stands with a paten on it. They hold up their ballot high to show that they have voted, then place it on the paten, and then slides it into the chalice. The votes are then counted by the Cardinal Camerlengo and his three assistants. Each assistant reads the name, reads the name aloud, writes it down on a tally sheet and then passes it to the next assistant. The third assistance runs a needle and thread through the centre of each ballot to join them all together. The ballots are then burned, as well as all notes made. If a new Pope has been elected, the papers are burned with to give white smoke. Otherwise, they give off black smoke, so that the waiting crowds, and the world, know whether their new Holy Father will soon emerge from the Sistine Chapel.

To be elected Pope, one Cardinal must receive more than two-thirds of the votes. Except that if 30 elections have taken place without any one Cardinal being elected Pope, then the Cardinals may then elect by simple majority. This is an important change and may well be the most important change made. In the past, it has often been the case that a particular candidate has had solid majority support but cannot garner the required two-thirds majority, eg, because he is too conservative to satisfy the more moderate Cardinals. Therefore a compromise candidate is chosen, either an old Pope who will die soon and not do much until the next conclave (which is what was intended with John XXIII!) or someone not so hard-line wins support. The difference now will be that if, in the early ballots, one candidate has strong majority support, there is less incentive for that majority to compromise with the cardinals who are against their candidate and they simply need to sit out 30 ballots to elect their man. This may well see much more "hard-line" Popes being elected, and given the conservative trend of most appointments to the College by Pope John Paul II, it is almost certainly going to be a man cut from the same cloth.

The cardinals vote on the afternoon of the first day, then twice each morning and once each afternoon. If they have not elected someone within the first nine votes, then they may devote up to a day to prayer and discussion before resuming. They may do the same every seven unsuccessful votes after that.

The Cardinals are not permitted any contact with the outside world: no mobile phones, no newspapers or television, no messages or letters or signals to observers. There will be regular sweeps of all relevant areas for listening devices. The Cardinals will for the first time be visible, at least twice daily, to the observing world, when they move the 350 metres from the Domus Sanctae Marthae to the Sistine Chapel and back again. No doubt, Vatican "experts" will be hired to expound at length on what the countenance of certain key Cardinals indicates as they are filmed moving to and from the Chapel!

Once a Cardinal has received the required number of votes, the Dean of the College of Cardinals asks him if he accepts election and by what name he wishes to be called as Pope. On giving assent, the Cardinal immediately becomes Pontifex Maximus, the Holy Roman Pontiff.

The Cardinals then pledge their obedience to His Holiness in turn. The Pope vests in his Pontifical clericals (white soutane and skull cap) -- the Italian family business in Rome that makes all the Papal vestments has several different sizes prepared in readiness for His Holiness, no matter what his shape or size!

The Dean of the College of Cardinals then steps onto the main balcony of the Vatican and declares to the World: "Habemus Papam!" "We have a Pope!" His Holiness then appears on the Balcony and delivers his Apostolic Blessing to the waiting World.

Within a short time of his election, before the Cardinals return home, a formal ceremony of inauguration takes place at which the woollen pallium is bestowed upon him. One of the few things Pope John Paul I managed to do in his short papacy was to abolish the traditional Papal Coronation, which Pope John Paul II did not resurrect. Traditionally, the Pope would be carried around St Peter's Square on the Sedia Gestatoria (the Papal Throne) and have the Papal Tiara placed on his head. These last two popes have done away with the monarchic symbolism of the papacy (including the use of the Royal "we") in favour of a heightened concentration of their role as "Servus Servorum Dei" -- Servant of the servants of God.

[url="http://www.catholic-pages.com/pope/election.asp"]http://www.catholic-pages.com/pope/election.asp[/url]

The Conclave

One of the primary duties of the Cardinals of the Catholic Church is the election of the Bishop of Rome who becomes thereby the Supreme Pontiff of the Church. The election is held in what is termed the conclave. The name is derived from the Latin cum (with) and clavis (key), and implies the fact that the cardinals are locked together in a room until a new pontiff has been chosen. This form of papal election began in 1274 and is considered the third period in the historical evolution of choosing the successor to St. Peter. Central to the full understanding of the conclave is the firm belief that the entire process of election is guided by the Holy Spirit.

In the early Church, new Bishops of Rome were chosen in the manner customarily used in the other dioceses, that is, the clergy, with the people of the diocese, elected or chose the new bishop in the presence of the other bishops in the province. This was a simple method, but it became impractical as the Christian population grew in size and there arose rival claimants and a certain hostility between the upper classes (the patricians) and the lower classes (the plebeians), each of whom had their own candidates. This situation created considerable upheaval in Rome as demonstrated by the riots accompanying the contested elections of Pope St. Damasus I (366-384) and the antipope Ursinus in 366. Such was the violence that the prefect of the city was called in to restore order.

On the basis of these disturbances, the Roman emperors began to involve themselves in the elections by guaranteeing proper procedure and ensuring free voting by the clergy in cases where two claimants had emerged. This intervention launched a long period of secular interference that would continue, to various degrees, until 1903. The so-called barbarian kings often supervised elections until the sixth century when the Byzantines reconquered Italy. The emperors not only demanded tribute from the popes but also retained the right of confirmation, a practice that routinely created long delays, as word would have to be sent to Constantinople (later Ravenna) to request approval. The last pope to seek confirmation from imperial authorities was Gregory III in 731. After this time, the popes sought the protection of the Franks, and in 769, Pope Stephen III convened a synod at Rome that confirmed the decree of 502 (under Symmachus) that laypeople should no longer vote for the popes and that only higher clerics should be considered eligible.

While making elections more efficient, the decrees did not remove the troublesome Roman nobility and their ambitions toward the papacy from 843 and the decline of the Frankish Empire. The next centuries saw such ruthless families as the Crescentii and Tusculani scheme to have their candidates elected, freely murdering those popes who displeased them and deposing others. A major reform was achieved in 1059 when Pope Nicholas II decreed that the cardinal bishops should choose the popes, a procedure modified by the Third Lateran Council (1179), which declared an end to distinctions among the three orders of cardinals in terms of voting, and requiring that a candidate receive a two-thirds majority.

The new need of a majority complicated many elections as a two-thirds plurality would often be quite difficult to reach owing to competing international interests among the cardinals. Vacancies were prolonged by squabbles, and sickly candidates were picked as compromises while negotiations would take place among the factions. After the death of Pope Clement IV in 1268, for example, three years passed until the eighteen cardinals gathered at Viterbo could agree on Pope Gregory X (r. 1271-1276), and this only after the citizens of the city reduced them to bread and water and tore the roof off the palace in which they were residing. Gregory introduced changes through the Second Council of Lyons (1272) to speed up elections, inaugurating the system of the conclave. It remained essentially unchanged until 1975. In that year, Pope Paul VI issued the apostolic constitution Romano Pontifici Eligendo (October 1) which stipulated various requirements for the conclave. Among these were: only cardinals may be electors; their number is limited to one hundred twenty, with each cardinal allowed to bring two or three assistants; while not essential for validity, it is the recognized form of election; three forms are acceptable: acclamation (acclamatio), compromise (by which certain cardinals are named delegates and are given power to act on behalf of the others); and balloting; if the person chosen is not a bishop, he is to be ordained to the episcopacy immediately (if a bishop, he is pope at once); secrecy is to be carefully observed; all ecumenical councils are immediately adjourned; and, if no one is elected after three days, one day is to be spent in prayer and meditation. New legislation regarding papal elections and church government during a vacancy of the Holy See was promulgated by Pope John Paul II on Feb. 23, 1996, in the apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis (“Shepherd of the Lord’s Whole Flock”). Among the changes that were introduced was the call for heightened security in preventing electronic surveillance and the provision that after a set number of unsuccessful ballots, the cardinals may elect the new pope by a simple majority vote.

The last election not held in the Vatican (the Sistine Chapel) was in 1846 (Pius IX), which took place at the Quirinal Palace. The last pope not a cardinal at the time of his election was Urban VI (1378-1389); the last by compromise was John XXII (r. 1316-1334); and the last by acclamation was Gregory XV (1621-1623).

[url="http://www.osv.com/catholicalmanac/conclave.asp"]http://www.osv.com/catholicalmanac/conclave.asp[/url]

Also try:

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11456a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11456a.htm[/url]

Oh and yes a Pope can retire if he feels he is unable to fulfill his reign as Pope, to my knowledge this has never occured, even Pope John Paul II has stated that he will not retire.

God Bless,
Jennie