'Conclave' offers a glimpse inside the secretive process of choosing a pope

The Star

22-04-2025

In the coming days cardinals younger than 80 will assemble at the Vatican to elect the successor to Pope Francis.
The proceedings, veiled in secrecy, come months after a fictionalised papal election received the Hollywood treatment in Edward Berger's drama Conclave .
The film's name comes from the secretive conference where Roman Catholic cardinals choose the next leader of the church.
The film, which made US$115mil at the global box office, offers a glimpse inside a process that in real life takes place under strict security measures to ensure confidentiality. The movie was 'quite accurate, save for a few things,' said Kurt Martens, a professor of canon law at the Catholic University of America.
Conclave has been widely celebrated, receiving top prizes at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the EE British Academy Film Awards, and winning the Academy Award for adapted screenplay.
Here's what happens in the film (caution: minor spoilers ahead) and what papal experts say is accurate about it. What's the movie Conclave about?
The film opens with the death of an unidentified fictional pope and follows the process and drama of a papal election.
It stars Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, dean of the College of Cardinals, with Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati and Sergio Castellitto playing top papal contenders.
The film follows the cardinals through numerous voting sessions, meals in a shared cafeteria and the rooms in the papal palace where they are sequestered.
While many experts have lauded the film as one of the more accurate depictions of the conclave, Piotr Kosicki, an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland, cautioned that 'on some level, very few people outside the College of Cardinals can really speak to the reality' of what takes place behind closed doors. What rituals and voting processes are depicted?
Many rituals in the film — the prayers being said, the burning of the ballots, a needle being woven through the ballots — are 'more or less correct,' Kosicki said.
During the voting process, each cardinal writes the name of one person on a rectangular ballot. Votes are announced aloud one by one and each ballot is threaded with a single needle before being burned. If a two-thirds consensus has not been reached, the smoke emitted from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel appears black.
Four rounds of voting are permitted daily. When a pope has been chosen by a two-thirds majority, the smoke from the chimney is white.
However, some rituals depicted in the film take place in a mix of English and Spanish. In reality, 'prayer in the Vatican is in Italian or in Latin, period,' Kosicki said. Is the politicking really that cutthroat?
While it is hard to say exactly what goes on within the confines of the conclave, electing a pope is like electing a head of state, said Massimo Faggioli, a professor of history at Villanova University.
The politicking begins in earnest after the pope has died during what is called sede vacante, the period when the seat is vacant. Some cardinals agree to news media interviews to raise their profiles or those of others. Groups gather for formal and informal conversations, and there are general congregations where all cardinals discuss the state of the church, as well as potential successors.
'This time, I think it's an open conclave, meaning that there's no natural successor, or not a cardinal who is clearly the favourite,' Faggioli said. Is it common for the cardinals to go multiple rounds without reaching a decision?
The word conclave is derived from the Latin words com, meaning 'together' and clavis, meaning 'key,' and the process was created in the early Middle Ages to ensure that a new pope could be chosen quickly.
Cardinals swear an oath of secrecy and are not allowed to leave the area of the conclave until a new pope is chosen, except for some rare circumstances.
Conclave , the film, depicts a pope being chosen over a dramatic three days and seven ballots. In the past couple of centuries, conclaves have not taken longer than four days, Faggioli said.
Pope Benedict XVI was elected in two days in 2005, as was Pope Francis in 2013.
'Everyone likes it when things go fast because it means a show of unity,' Kosicki said. 'And it means a strong sort of message being sent to the outside world, to the 1.4 billion Catholics.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company