What is a conclave? How the next pope is chosen
Pope Francis was laid to rest on Saturday.
The work a pope does, such as appointing bishops, announcing new saints or convening a synod, is put on hold until a new pope is chosen.
Here's what you need to know about how a pope is chosen.
A conclave is a meeting of the College of Cardinals where an election is held to determine who the next pope is.
The conclave will begin on May 7 and continue until a new pope is selected.
Only cardinals under the age of 80 are eligible to vote in a conclave. They are known as the cardinal electors, and their number is 135.
According to the United States Council of Catholic Bishops, before the conclave, the College of Cardinals, which includes 252 cardinals, holds a series of meetings at the Vatican called general congregations. They discuss the needs and the challenges facing the Catholic Church globally.
Cardinals are bishops and Vatican officials from all over the world, personally chosen by the pope.
Where is the conclave?: What to know about the Sistine Chapel, site of the conclave to pick a new pope
Up to four secret ballots are conducted daily. Electors scrawl handwritten votes on slips of paper. A pope is chosen when he garners two-thirds of the vote.
Each time no candidate earns a sufficient portion of votes, the cardinals break for closed-door discussion and eventually reconvene for another vote, with the process repeating until a decision is made.
The smoke is a way to let the public know a new pope has been selected.
After the voting, if no one receives the necessary two-thirds of the vote, the ballots are burned in a stove near the chapel with a mixture of chemicals to produce black smoke.
When a cardinal receives the necessary two-thirds vote, the dean of the College of Cardinals asks him if he accepts his election. If he accepts, he chooses a papal name and is dressed in papal vestments before processing out to the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica. The ballots of the final round are burned with chemicals, producing white smoke to signal to the world the election of a new pope.
Pope Francis was the 266th pope in the Roman Catholic Church's nearly 2,000-year history. The first pope was St. Peter, the apostle of Jesus Christ.
While no clear successor has been named, any baptized Roman Catholic male is technically eligible to be elected pope. However, since 1378 the new pope has been chosen from the College of Cardinals, according to Religion News Service.
Speculation over some of the more prominent cardinals in line for the pontiff includes:
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem
Jean-Marc Aveline, Archbishop of Marseille
Cardinal Luis Tagle, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples since December 2019 and former archbishop of Manila.
Matteo Maria Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state
Cardinal Peter Turkson, of Ghana, who served as president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
Cardinal Peter Erdo, Former president of the Council of Bishops Conferences of Europe
Cardinal Juan Jose Omella, Archbishop of Barcelona
Mario Grech, Secretary general of the Synod of Bishops
Cardinal Angelo Scola, Former archbishop of Milan
Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, Vatican official, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
Marc Ramirez, Melina Khan and John Bacon, George Petras and Janet Loehrke contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: What is a conclave? How the pope is selected, top papal candidates
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