The path to picking a new pope -- and what role California will play

Los Angeles Times

22-04-2025

Pope Francis' funeral will be held Saturday in St. Peter's Square, in front of the Basilica of St. Peter, marking the beginning of a highly choreographed process to select a new pope that is steeped in both history and politics.
All of the 252 cardinals from across the globe will attend the funeral — and at least 120 will then convene to elect the next leader of the Catholic Church's 1 billion members in a sacred process known as the conclave. There is already much speculation about who the cardinals will select and whether that new pope will continue Francis' pastoral priorities of concern for the poor and reform of the Vatican bureaucracy.
On Monday morning the Vatican announced the 88-year-old pope had died of a stroke and 'irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse,' according to Vatican News, an official publication of the Vatican.
As the church's 266th leader, he was revered by many Catholics and theologians for his commitment to social justice and focus on church ministry to migrants, poor and oppressed people. Although he followed the church's conservative doctrines on abortion and LGBTQ rights, he shook up the conservative norms of the church when he told clerics to be 'obsessed with' those issues.
The funeral is scheduled for 1 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.
Keeping with tradition, the Vatican's health department verifies the pope's death in his home and his body in placed in a coffin and transferred to St. Peter's Basilica for pubic viewing, the funeral Mass and burial.
During this time, Cardinal Kevin Farrell is acting as the cardinal camerlengo, a person the pope appoints prior to their death who is tasked with certain duties during the transition to a successor, NPR reported. Those duties include destroying the late pope's symbolic fisherman's ring (used to seal Vatican documents) and preparing for the conclave.
The pope's body must be interred between the fourth and sixth day after death. Last year, the Pope Francis changed the practice of popes being buried in three coffins to only two, the body is placed in a wooden coffin with a zinc coffen inside, reported PBS. In keeping with the changes, he will buried at St. Mary Major basilica, located outside of the Vatican, a church devoted to the Virgin Mary that he visited at the beginning and end of every apostolic trip he took during his 12-year papacy.
After the funeral, there are nine days of official mourning known as the 'novendiali.' This is when the college of cardinals will gather in the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City for the conclave.
The conclave is a gathering of 120 church cardinals who hold a secret ballot vote in the Sistine Chapel to elect the next pope.
There isn't a set date for the conclave, however it must be held 15 to 20 days after the 'sede vacante', a vacancy of the papacy caused by a pope's death or resignation, is declared.
During the voting sessions ballots are filled out, tallied up, then burned. After every round of voting smoke is released from a chimney atop the church. Black smoke means no pope has been selected and a new round of voting will take place. White smoke means a pope has been chosen.
To be elected-in as the leader the next pope needs two-thirds of the vote.
That vote will include cardinals from countries with historically large congregations like France, Italy and the United States, but also others from more distant locations like Mongolia, presided over by Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, who Pope Francis appointed in 2022, said Father Allan Deck, Scholar of Theology and Latino Studies at Loyola Marymount University and Professor of Theological Studies.
'While there are still cardinals from some of the largest Catholic cities in the world, he would choose cardinals that came from places that were on the periphery,' Fr. Deck said of the late pope. 'This was consistent with the idea he had that the church needed to go to the periphery and not just stay with the center, those that are getting the most attention, but to give attention to those that aren't it. Usually it's the people in the poorer areas who are the people that are forgotten.'
Currently 80% of the cardinals who will participate in the conclave were handpicked by Pope Francis.
'It's a different composition than what we've had in the past, to some extent, because of the inclusion of so many of the cardinals from smaller areas in the world,' Fr. Deck said.
For the first time in a long time, California won't have a cardinal represented at the conclave.
Cardinal Roger Mahoney — who led the L.A. archdiocese from 1985 to 2011— is barred from the process for two reasons: his involvement in concealing sexual abuse in the church prohibits is involvement in public or administrative duties; and at 89 year sold, he is aged-out because conclave participants must be under 80.
California did have Cardinal Robert McElroy, who was born in San Francisco and has long worked in churches in San Francisco, San Mateo and more recently San Diego. Cardinal McElroy steadily moved his way up to becoming the Archdiocesan Vicar for Parish Life and Development and served in that role until his appointment to be the sixth bishop of San Diego in March 2015.
Pope Francis appointed then-Bishop McElroy to the College of Cardinals in 2022 and three years later Francis appointed Cardinal McElroy the eighth Archbishop of Washington on Jan. 6.
Archbishop José H. Gomez of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles is unable to participate because he is not a cardinal. Francis considered his views too conservative to elevate him to the positition, said David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.