Paper Ballots and Sacred Oaths: A Look Inside the Papal Conclave
The conclave to elect the next pope is now underway at the Vatican. The cardinals — the prelates who are just below the pope in the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy — will vote by secret ballot for a successor to Pope Francis until one candidate earns a two-thirds majority.
While we may not know what's being said during the conclave — it is off limits to outsiders — we do have a pretty good idea what it will look like. During the gathering, the cardinals will follow specific instructions and use several distinctive objects to facilitate the process, many steeped in tradition.
Here's a look at some of those objects, and the meaning behind them.
Voting Instruments
When the cardinals vote in the Sistine Chapel, they will be sitting in rows of simple wooden tables. At one end of the chapel, a large table is set up for those who run the voting, according to the Universi Dominici Gregis, or U.D.G., one of the documents used to govern the papal transition.
The room also contains voting instruments, including an urn to receive the ballots, a set of wooden balls, and a needle and twine. The urn is used to collect the ballots, rectangular pieces of paper printed with the Latin phrase 'Eligo in Summum Pontificem' ('I elect as Supreme Pontiff').
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