Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes; Fourth Edition (79 page)

To elect a pope, there must be a two-thirds majority plus one (in case a cardinal has voted for himself). There are normally two ballots each morning, and two in the afternoon, but on the first day of the conclave there is normally only a single ballot. If after three days of voting no election has been made, the cardinals pause for prayer and reflection, for not more than a day. Voting resumes for another seven ballots, with another pause if no pope has been elected. After thirty ballots, the Cardinal Camerlengo invites the cardinals to suggest some method of resolving the deadlock. When they then resume voting, the requirement for a two-thirds majority lapses and a simple majority suffices. This is a truly startling change in the procedures in operation since the twelfth century, and, on the face of it, an unwise one. The international composition of the Sacred College and the large number of electors involved means that the cardinals may take time to familiarise themselves with potential candidates, and makes a prolonged election by no means unlikely. There is a risk that this ‘emergency’ relaxation of the two-thirds majority rule might in fact happen frequently, and result in the election of popes who do not
command the consensual support of the College of Cardinals as a whole. There is room in the new rules for abuse: a determined (and unscrupulous) group of cardinals could block the necessary two-thirds majority for thirty ballots, and then shoe in their own man by a simple majority (all forms of partisan coordination and plotting of this kind are absolutely forbidden in papal elections, on pain of excommunication: they are nevertheless by no means unknown).

Once an election has successfully taken place, the secretary of the conclave (not a cardinal) and the papal Master of Ceremonies are summoned to the Sistine Chapel. The Cardinal Dean approaches the elect and asks him ‘Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff’. If he accepts, the Cardinal Dean asks, ‘By what name do you wish to be called’, upon which the new pope chooses and announces his papal name. (With very few exceptions, for the last thousand years all new popes have chosen a name different from their baptismal or Christian name). If he is not already a bishop (cardinals are normally ordained archbishops, but a new cardinal may not have been so ordained, and some choose to remain priests) he is immediately ordained by the Cardinal Dean. The new pope is then robed in white cassock and sash and white skull-cap, red slippers, a lace rochet or episcopal surplice, and a short red cape. (Three cassocks small medium and large are kept in readiness). The pope then sits on a stool before the altar, the Camerlengo gives him the Fisherman’s Ring, and the cardinals come in order of seniority and kneel to pay homage to him. The proceedings conclude with the singing of a solemn hymn of thanks-giving,
Te Deum Laudamus
, We Praise Thee O God.

While all this is proceeding, crowds have gathered in St Peter’s Square, alerted by the white smoke. The Senior Cardinal Deacon goes to the balcony overlooking the Piazza, and declares ‘Annuntio vobis Gaudiam Magnam, habemus Papam’, ‘I announce to you a great joy: we have a Pope’, and he informs the crowd of the pope’s old name and his new papal name. The new pope then appears and gives his blessing ‘Urbi et Orbi’, to the City and the World. It is not customary for the new pope to make a speech at this point: when Karol Wojtyla did so, an impatient cardinalatial voice was clearly audible over the loudspeaker system muttering ‘Basta! Basta!’, ‘That’s enough, that’s enough’.

Up to and including the pontificate of Paul VI, new popes were inaugurated by being solemnly crowned with the triple tiara in St
Peter’s basilica, to which they were carried on the
Sedia Gestatoria
, the ceremonial throne carried on the shoulders of members of the old Roman aristocracy, accompanied by two great ostrich-feather fans, relics of Byzantine court ritual. Pope John Paul I renounced this ceremony, which had come to seem too reminiscent of the medieval papacy’s conflicts with emperors and inappropriate claims of the popes to temporal dominion. Popes now are simply inaugurated at a special mass in or outside St Peter’s, at which the pope is invested with the white woollen stole, known as the Pallium, by the Senior Cardinal Deacon: the mass concludes with a repetition of the blessing ‘Urbi et Orbi’.

NOTES

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: U
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OCK

1
Most of the early texts bearing on the history of the papacy up to the reign of Damasus I are conveniently collected and translated into English in J.T. Shotwell and L. R. Loomis,
The See of Peter
, New York 1927, reprinted in 1991. The passage from Irenaeus’
Contra Haereses
III cited in the text will be found at pp. 265–72.

2
For these passages, ibid., pp. 72, 236–9, 265–72.

3
Ibid., pp. 266–7.

4
Eusebius,
History of the Church
, ed. A. Louth, Harmondsworth 1989, pp. 170–4 (V/24).

5
Shotwell and Loomis,
See of Peter
, p. 267, but following here the better translation in J. Stevenson,
A New Eusebius
, London 1963, p. 119.

6
The cult of Peter and Paul at San Sebastiano poses many problems, not least that of whether at any stage the Apostles’ bodies were buried there. It has been suggested that the shrine was originally a schismatic one, independent of any grave, set up by the supporters of the Antipope Novation in opposition to the official Vatican cult, but there is no clear evidence for this claim. More plausibly, it has been suggested that the shrine at San Sebastiano was an unofficial ‘folk’ shrine, which the authorities were forced to adopt to prevent it spiralling out of the Bishop’s control: either way, the cult demonstrates the growing importance of the two saints. Description and plans of the site at San Sebastiano, D. W. O’Connor,
Peter in Rome
, New York 1969, pp. 135–58; helpful discussion and examples of the inscriptions quoted in the text, in H. Chadwick, ‘St Peter and Paul in Rome’, in his
History and Thought of the Early Church
, London 1982, pp. 31–52.

7
Shotwell and Loomis,
See of Peter
, pp. 252–3.

8
Quoted in K. Schatz,
Papal Primacy from its Origins to the Present
, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1990, p. 6.

9
Shotwell and Loomis,
See of Peter
, pp. 334–7.

10
Ibid., pp. 267, 294.

11
All the texts on the disputes gathered in ibid., pp. 399–420.

12
Ibid., p. 415.

13
R. Davis (ed.),
The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis)
, Liverpool 1989, pp. 14–26.

14
Documents for Sardica in Shotwell and Loomis,
See of Peter
, pp. 503–34.

15
Ibid., pp. 561, 571.

16
Ibid., pp. 572–6.

17
Ibid., p. 686.

18
R. B. Eno,
The Rise of the Papacy
, Wilmington, Delaware 1990, pp. 80–4.

19
Davis,
Book of Pontiffs
, p. 29.

20
Shotwell and Loomis,
See of Peter
, p. 633.

21
Chadwick, ‘St Peter and Paul in Rome’, pp. 34–5; R. Krautheimer,
Rome: Profile of a City; 312–1308
, Princeton 1980, pp. 39–41.

22
Krautheimer,
Rome
, p. 41.

23
The whole letter is printed in Shotwell and Loomis,
See of Peter
, pp. 699–708.

24
Eno,
Rise of the Papacy
, p. 94.

25
Ibid., p. 100.

26
Quoted in Schatz,
Papal Primacy
, p.35.

27
Eno,
Rise of the Papacy
, pp. 102–9.

28
J. Tillard,
The Bishop of Rome
, London 1983, p. 91; R. B. Eno (ed.),
Teaching Authority in the Early Church
, Wilmington, Delaware, 1984 pp. 161–2.

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wo
: B
ETWEEN
T
wo
E
MPIRES

1
Text of Gelasius’ letter in S. Z. Ehler and J. B. Morall,
Church and State through the Centuries
, London 1954, p. 11 (translation slightly altered).

2
P. Brown,
The World of Late Antiquity
, London 1971, pp. 146–8.

3
Latin text in C. Rahner (ed.)
Henrici Denzinger, Enchyridion Symbolorum
, Barcelona, Freiburg, Rome 1957, no. 171–2.

4
R. Davis (ed.),
The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis)
, Liverpool 1989, p. 49.

5
Quoted in K. Schatz,
Papal Primacy from its Origins to the Present
, Collegeville, Minnesota 1996, p. 54.

6
J. Richards,
Consul of God: The Life and Times of Gregory the Great
, London 1980, p. 36.

7
P. Llewellyn,
Rome in the Dark Ages
, London 1993, p. 90.

8
Jeffrey Richards,
The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages, 476–732
, London 1979, p. 283.

9
J. Barmby (ed.),
The Book of the Pastoral Rule and Selected Epistles of Gregory the Great
, Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, end Series vol. 12, New York 1895, p. 176.

10
Ibid., p. 176.

11
Richards,
Consul of God
, p. 31.

12
Barmby,
Selected Epistles of Gregory the Great
, pp. 140–1.

13
Ibid., p. 179; Richards,
Consul of God
, pp. 64–8.

14
R.W. Southern,
Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages
, Harmondsworth 1970, p. 172.

15
Barmby,
Selected Epistles of Gregory the Great
, p. 170.

16
Ibid., pp. 166–73 for a series of letters on the dispute about the ‘Ecumenical’ title: the letter cited is ibid., pp 240–1, but I have preferred the translation in J. Tillard,
The Bishop of Rome
, London 1983, pp. 52–3 (Latin text pp. 203–4).

17
Barmby,
Selected Epistles of Gregory the Great
, p. 88.

18
Bede,
The Ecclesiastical History of the English Pope
, i 27, para. III, ed. Judith McClure and Roger Collins, Oxford 1994, p. 43.

19
Ibid., iii 25, p. 159: for King Oswiu’s smile, Eddius Stephanus,
Life of Wilfred
, in J. F. Webb and D. H. Farmer (trans and eds),
The Age of Bede
, Harmondsworth 1983, p. 115.

20
Davis,
Book of Pontiffs
, p. 72.

21
Ibid., p. 85.

22
R. Davis (ed.),
The Lives of the Eighth-Century Popes
, Liverpool 1992, p. 13.

23
W. Ullmann,
A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages
, London 1974, p. 72; Southern,
Western Society and the Church
, p. 59.

24
Davis,
Eighth-Century Popes
, pp. 26–7; Llewellyn,
Rome in the Dark Ages
, pp. 202–3.

25
Text in Ehler and Morall,
Church and State
, pp. 15–22.

26
Text in J. Wallace-Hadrill,
The Frankish Church
, Oxford 1983, p. 186.

27
This is the interpretation of Charlemagne’s reservations offered by Notker the Stammerer: L. Thorpe (ed.),
Two Lives of Charlemagne
, Harmondsworth 1969, p. 124.

28
Ullmann,
Short History of the Papacy
, pp. 105–8; R. Davis (ed.),
The Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes
, Liverpool 1995, pp. 201–2; H. K. Mann,
The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages
, London 1902–32, vol. 3, pp. 58–61.

29
R. W Southern,
The Making of the Middle Ages
, London 1987, pp. 131–2.

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T
HREE
: S
ET
A
BOVE
N
ATIONS

1
Text of Cluny’s foundation charter printed in R. C. Petry (ed.),
A History of Christianity: Readings in the History of the Church
, Grand Rapids 1981, vol. 1, p. 280–1.

2
Quoted in G. Tellenbach,
The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century
, Cambridge 1993, p. 170.

3
For a translation of the Dictatus, S. Z. Ehler and J. B. Morall,
Church and State through the Centuries
, London 1954, pp. 43–4.

4
Tellenbach,
Western Church
, pp. 206–7.

5
Text of Henry’s letter printed in Petry,
Readings in the History of the Church
, vol. 1, p. 237.

6
Text in H. Bettenson (ed.),
Documents of the Christian Church
, Oxford 1954, pp. 144–5.

7
Letter to Bishop of Metz 1081, in ibid., pp. 145–53.

8
Quoted in C. Morris,
The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250
, Oxford 1991, p. 125.

9
Quoted in R. W Southern,
Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages
, Harmondsworth 1970, p. 105.

10
J. D. Anderson and E. T. Kennan (eds),
St Bernard of Clairvaux: Five Books of Consideration: Advice to a Pope
, Kalamazoo, Michigan 1976, p. 121.