The Papal Conclaves: As They Were and As They Are

The preface begins: "Never before, since a bishop's See was first established in Rome, whether by St. Peter or another, has the world at the period of the election of one Pope had so long a time in which to forget the election of his predecessor. St. Peter is said by tradition to have been bishop at Rome for twenty-five years. And no Pope of all the two hundred and sixty who occupied the See between his death and the election of Pius IX. ever reigned so long as Peter, the longest reign having been that of Pius VI., who died in 1799, after an incumbency of twenty-four years and eight months."The election of a Pope has not always been a smooth process and there has been much intrigued. Let us consider the self-appointment of John XII: "Clement proceeded to fill the Sacred College with French cardinals, whose scandalous quarrels and grossly simoniacal proceedings caused, at his death in 1314, an interregnum of two years, five months, and seventeen days. Two Conclaves were held during this time, one in Carpentras and one in Lyons; at the last of which, a "compromise" having at length been agreed to, and the French Cardinal Jacopo d'Euse having been intrusted with the nomination of the Pope, and the cardinals having bound themselves, as is the essential condition of an election by "compromise," to accept his nominee as the legitimate Pope, he forthwith declared "Ego sum Papa!" "I am the Pope," and was elected accordingly." There have been other scandals in the history of the election of the Pope, but the Catholic Church has survived them all.