Could this be the longest conclave in modern history?
Peter Day-Milne• May 1, 2025
Every Catholic has his or her prediction for the conclave: some predict a new pope in the mould of Pope Francis, others predict a course correction for the Church with the election of a man such as Cardinal Robert Sarah. But if the topic of the conclave has been on everyone’s lips, one question of which I’ve heard little discussion so far has been its length: will the cardinals swiftly return a new pope, or will there be a long, hard fight, with many rounds of balloting before one candidate achieves a two-thirds majority of the electors?
Even the betting markets have neglected this question of the conclave’s length: at the time of writing, users of the betting website Polymarket had staked over $10,000,000 on the identity of the next pope, but only $300,000 on the date of his election. Yet I believe that the most striking feature of this year’s conclave – the one that historians will remember – could well be that it lasts a very long time.
This is because of a little-remarked quirk that Pope Benedict introduced into the rules of conclaves in 2007. It did not become relevant in the one papal conclave held since then, namely the conclave that elected Pope Francis in 2013, but it could well do so in the more contentious election that seems likely this time round, as progressive and traditionalist cardinals fight each other for the future of the Church.
To understand this quirk in the rules, one must go back to the reforms of the conclave promulgated in 1996 by Pope John Paul II with the apostolic constitution Universi Dominici gregis. With this document Pope John Paul II made many radical changes to traditional practice. For example, for the first time in centuries, the cardinals were allowed to live outside the Sistine Chapel complex during the conclave (they are now housed in the Domus Sanctae Marthae). Moreover, the two traditional alternatives to papal election by ballot (per scrutinium) were abolished: namely spontaneous acclamation (whereby the cardinals all shouted the name of their chosen candidate at once, it was assumed at the inspiration of the Holy Spirit), and compromise (whereby the electors delegated a small committee of cardinals to make the choice for them).
But the reform most relevant to the length of the conclave was a further one, and perhaps the most radical of all. If the conclave had failed to elect a pope after 32 rounds of voting (or 33, if one was held on the first day), Pope John Paul II permitted a simple majority of the electors to change the threshold of votes that a man would need to become pope, lowering it from the traditional two-thirds of the electorate to a minimum of 50 per cent plus one.
Although Universi Dominici gregis does not tell us why Pope John Paul created this new rule, it seems likely that he had in mind the sheer workload of the Holy See and the cardinals in the modern world, and the danger that a long conclave might paralyse the Church. He was abolishing election by compromise, which had been the cardinals’ traditional means of ending a long and contentious conclave, and so he wanted give them another means of doing so; hence he devised the new procedure whereby the cardinals might lower the electoral threshold.
After John Paul II’s death, however, as the cardinals gathered for the conclave that would elect Pope Benedict XVI, a problem soon became apparent. If one faction of cardinals could achieve a simple majority for its candidate, it would need only to continue voting for him until round 32 or 33, and then it could force through a reduction of the electoral threshold to a simple majority, and elect him pope. Hence Pope John Paul II had, in effect, reduced the electoral threshold to a simple majority from the very beginning of a conclave – something that he had never meant to do.
Mindful of this problem, in 2007 Pope Benedict issued his own document, De aliquibus mutationibus in normis de electione Romani Pontificis, which modified the procedure to be followed when the cardinals had failed to elect a pope after 32 or 33 rounds. From this point on, only the two cardinals who had received the most votes in the previous round would appear on the cardinals’ ballot papers. But in accordance with tradition, a successful candidate would still need two thirds of the electors’ votes to become pope.
Pope Benedict’s revised rules are still in force, and will govern this year’s conclave. But it is not hard to imagine a situation in which they could cause absolute deadlock. Suppose this year’s conclave were to be split in the ratio 3:2 between cardinals who wanted a second pope Francis, and cardinals who wanted an unabashed traditionalist. The conclave reaches round 33; the heir to Francis receives 50 per cent of the vote, and the traditionalist comes second with 30 per cent. From this point, only these two men remain on the ballot. The cardinals vote again and again, but the traditionalist faction will not elect the heir to Francis; nor will the more progressive cardinals countenance the traditionalist candidate. The cardinals no longer have the option of finding an alternative, compromise candidate. How, at this point, does the conclave end?
Under the rules currently in force, there is simply no answer, and speculation quickly becomes fantastic. Would the Sacred College have to declare itself unable to elect a pope? Might it then have to invite the actual clergy of Rome – the only other body obviously competent to elect a pope – to choose their candidate? What about the cardinals over eighty, scandalously stripped of their voting rights by Pope Paul VI in 1970? And besides these speculative questions, there is an even more fascinating one – why did the brilliant mind of Pope Benedict not foresee this problem of irresolvable electoral deadlock?
At this point, we are heading into the realm of fiction. But one thing is for sure: if this conclave goes beyond round thirty-three, then all bets are off.
RELATED: Cardinal Sarah is the man to save the Church as next pope
Photo: A floodlight points towards St Peter’s Basilica as a sculpture of St Peter holding the key to heaven stands in St Peter’s Square, Vatican, 13 March 2013. At the time, Pope Benedict XVI’s successor was being chosen by the College of Cardinals in Conclave in the Sistine Chapel. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images.)