PrintConclave, then and now
Then
The death of Pope Clement IV on 29 November 1268 began a papal interregnum of almost three years, until Teobaldo Visconti was elected on 1 September 1271, then crowned with the name of Pope Gregory X on 27 March 1272. Conclave, the tradition of isolating the cardinal—electors by locking them behind closed doors 'with a key (cum clave)' began as a response to this extraordinary circumstance.
The tale is fascinating, and begins with the election of Clement, born Guido le Gros, a Frenchman, knight, and advisor to Louis IX, King of France, before turning to religion after the death of his wife. Clement's brief reign (5 February 1265 to 29 November, 1268) had been taken up almost exclusively with political matters, because he had been elected on the basis of a political calculation that the Church should enlist the aid of Charles of Anjou, the youngest brother of King Louis IX of France, in its war against the Hohenstaufens. A reaction was inevitable and came after Clement's death, when the fifteen papal electors were so divided between Frenchmen who wanted another Clement and Italians who wanted to sever the French connection, that the required two—thirds majority could not be attained.
Enter Br. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, Italian, Franciscan, Master of Theology at the University of Paris, and since 1257 Minister General of the Franciscans. In the Fall of 1268, Bonaventure was in Assisi.
Upon news of the death of Clement, Bonaventure walked — for that was the only way Franciscans were allowed to travel, they could not even ride horses or mules — from Assisi to Viterbo, where Clement had died and where the cardinal electors were assembling. There on 16 December 1268 he preached 'before his brothers at Viterbo, while the papal see was vacant, namely, after Clement IV.' The full text of the sermon no longer exists but the copyists preserved an outline of it. Conclave was yet to be created, so there can be no doubt the cardinal electors heard him.
The outlines of the coming conflict between them already were clear to Bonaventure, who preached on John the Baptist.
'I am a voice crying in the wilderness,' [John 1:23]. The holy and sanctified precursor makes two points with these words: first, he acknowledges the humility of his own office, at 'I am a voice'; and second he expresses the authority of his own jurisdiction, at 'crying in the desert.'
Surely Bonaventure thought of himself as a voice crying in a wilderness of overly politicized cardinals. And in pointing to the 'humility' and the 'authority' of John, he was reminding them of the need to elect a man of 'humility' to exercise the awesome 'jurisdiction' of papal power.
And of course, there is also the implication that humility would not be out of place among the cardinal electors themselves. Bonaventure went on to outline eight traits of John the Baptist, implying the electors should look for these traits in a new pope.
"Now John was a voice of security and constancy by reason of the unchangeableness of his holy life. ... And John was a voice of tranquility and concord by reason of the sweetness of his inner piety.
... And John was the voice of humility and patience by reason of his mind and person. ... And John was the voice of purity and sanctity by reason of his promoting celibacy and modesty."
What is remarkable about this list is that these are not the virtues of a powerful political leader such as Clement IV had been. Bonaventure's task was to point out a new direction, toward the kind of moral and spiritual values now needed in a new pope.
The cardinal—electors sat in disagreement in the papal palace during the next two and one half years, exhibiting the opposite traits from those Bonaventure had set out: political discord, pride, and plotting that produced insecurity. The roof of the palace was removed and they were put on a diet of bread and water to try to expedite their deliberations, thus beginning the process now known as conclave.
But the cardinals did not forget Bonaventure's sermon, and when they had grown desperate they turned to him. Bartholomew of Pisa, writing a chronicle about 1385, tells the story this way:
'Brother Bonventure of Balnoregio ... had such a fine reputation when he was General that, when there was discord over the election of the lord Pope in Perugia, all [the electors] freely give over their own votes to him, so that if he nominated himself or another to be Pope, they would elect him; and then he nominated that completely holy man, lord Gregory X.'
Bonaventure refused the offer for himself, gave the cardinals the name of Teobaldo, then on crusade in Palestine, who returned, accepted, took the name of Gregory after Gregory IX, the cardinal protector of the Franciscan order early in the century, and appointed Bonaventure cardinal. Gregory then institutionalized conclave for the election of his successor, a process that continues to this day.
Now
One thing the story of the invention of conclave points out is that the custom of using sermons to give advice to the papal electors is precisely as old as conclave itself. One natural place to look for such advice is in the sermons of the novendiales, the nine day 'novena' of masses for the deceased pontiff that precede conclave, an equally ancient custom.
The sermons preached by cardinal electors for John Paul II have been, first and foremost, thanks for the life of the man the people of Rome and the world who attended his funeral seem already to have judged to possess the 'heroic' virtues required for sanctity. Witness the banners that read 'saint, now (santo subito).'
But the traits of the late pontiff that the cardinals have chosen to emphasize in their sermons also tell us something about the traits they think important in the next man, just as the traits of John the Baptist which Bonaventure chose to emphasize in 1268 were the ones he thought the cardinal electors then should heed. What picture have the cardinal drawn in their sermons?
In his sermon for 3 April 2005, Divine Mercy Sunday, just two days after John Paul's death and well before the funeral, Card. Sodano, Vatican Secretary of State, set the tone:
"Indeed, John Paul II, John Paul the Great, thus became the champion of the civilization of love, seeing in this term one of the most beautiful definitions of the "Christian civilization." Yes, the Christian civilization is a civilization of love, radically different from that civilization of hate which Nazism and Communism proposed."
At least publically, Vatican Secretaries of State are not given to hyperbole; yet here was the most extraordinary statement. Though there have been outstanding popes in the intervening centuries, the term 'great' has been reserved for two early popes, based on the way they had dealt with the overwhelming barbarity of their times: Leo I (
