April 29, 2025 // National

Conclave to Elect Next Pope Will Begin May 7

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The 135 cardinals eligible to elect the next pope will enter the Sistine Chapel to begin the conclave on Wednesday, May 7, Vatican officials announced on Monday, April 28, two days after the funeral Mass of Pope Francis was held in St. Peter’s Square.

On the morning of May 7, the cardinals will first celebrate the Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff in St. Peter’s before processing into the Sistine Chapel that evening.

The Vatican Museums announced that the Sistine Chapel would be closed to visitors beginning on April 28 to allow preparations for the conclave to begin. The preparations include the installation of a stove to burn the cardinals’ ballots and a chimney on the roof to signal the election results to the world.

The date for the conclave was set during the fifth general congregation meeting of cardinals on April 28, Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, told reporters at a briefing later that day. The general congregation meeting was the first after a two-day pause to allow cardinals to participate in the funeral rites for Pope Francis.

More than 180 cardinals attended the April 28 meeting, including more than 100 cardinal electors. During the session, about 20 cardinals offered reflections on the state of the Church, its mission in the world, the challenges it faces, and the qualities needed in the next pope, Bruni said.

Topics addressed included evangelization, interfaith relations, and the ongoing need to address clerical sexual abuse, he added.

Looking ahead to the next session, Bruni said the general congregation meeting on Tuesday, April 29, was scheduled to begin with a reflection by Benedictine Father Donato Ogliari, abbot of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome and a member of the Dicastery for Bishops.

As cardinals entered the Vatican for the morning’s session, Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm was asked by reporters if he expected a long conclave. “I think it will be,” he said, “because up to now we don’t know each other.”

Meanwhile, Cardinal Walter Kasper, former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity who is past the age limit to vote in the conclave, told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that he hopes the cardinal-electors “come to a consensus on the next pope very soon, in the footsteps of Francis.”

Wide-Mix of Electors

The conclave is expected to be the largest in history, with a wide geographical mix of cardinal-electors.

There are 135 cardinals younger than 80 and eligible to vote in a papal election. By contrast, 115 cardinals took part in the conclaves in 2005 and 2013.

The cardinals represent 72 different countries if one counts the nations where they are serving and not just where they were born. Take the example of three Italians: Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa is the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem; Cardinal Giorgio Marengo is the apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; and Cardinal Mario Zenari is the apostolic nuncio to Syria.

According to Universi Dominici Gregis, the document giving rules for the election of a new pope, cardinals who celebrate their 80th birthday before the day the Apostolic See becomes vacant – that is, with a papal death or resignation – do not take part in the election.

The oldest among current voters is Cardinal Carlos Osoro Sierra, the retired archbishop of Madrid, who turns 80 on Friday, May 16.

The youngest member of the conclave is 45-year-old Ukrainian-born Cardinal Mykola Bychok of the Ukrainian Eparchy of Sts. Peter and Paul of Melbourne, Australia. He is one of 17 Gen X cardinals – those born between 1965 and 1980.

Only five of the cardinals eligible to enter the conclave were created cardinals by St. John Paul II, and 22 were created by Pope Benedict XVI. That means 27 of them took part in the conclave that elected Pope Francis, and five of those also participated in the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict.

But that also means voting in a conclave will be a new experience for 108 of the electors.

While the geographical breakdown of conclave voters has become more diverse since 1978, Europeans are still the largest block. Fifty-two of the electors, or 37 percent, come from Europe.

However, Asia is more represented now than ever before, with 24 electors – almost 18 percent of the total. There are 23 cardinal-electors representing Latin America, about 17 percent of the total, followed by Africa with 18 electors. North America now trails behind Africa and Asia with 14 electors, representing about 10 percent, and Oceania has four voting-age cardinals, about 2.9 percent of the total.

In the country-by-country breakdown, Italy has 16 voting-age cardinals, followed by the United States with 10, representing 7 percent of the voting total.

In terms of influence, the Vatican as an institution will be heavily represented, with 27 members of the Roman Curia voting in the conclave – 19.7 percent of the total.

Since a two-thirds majority of the cardinal-electors who participate is needed to elect a pope, if all 135 men were to attend, there would need to be at least 90 votes for one candidate to emerge as the winner.

Timing and Procedures

The cardinals who enter the Sistine Chapel on May 7 to elect a new pope use smoke signals to communicate with the outside world.

Black smoke indicates they have cast their votes without anyone garnering the necessary two-thirds majority, while white smoke confirms that the Catholic Church has a new pope.

The best time to be in St. Peter’s Square to see the smoke is just after 7 p.m. (Roman time) on the first day of the conclave, May 7; and on the following days at 10:30 a.m. and noon, and again at 5:30 p.m. and just after 7 p.m.

Predicting when the smoke will rise from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel is not an exact science. The time needed for the cardinals’ prayers, discussions, and vote counting can vary.

After the cardinals process into the Sistine Chapel to begin the conclave and take their oaths of secrecy, the papal master of liturgical ceremonies proclaims “extra omnes” (“everyone out”), and the cardinals listen to 90-year-old Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, whom they chose to offer a meditation “concerning the grave duty incumbent on them and thus on the need to act with right intention for the good of the universal Church.”

After that, there are prayers and an explanation of the rules for the election of a pope.

Then, the cardinals decide whether they want to cast their first ballots that same evening. The cardinals choose to have a first ballot in the evening during the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict and the 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis.

The cardinals’ ballots, mixed with a chemical coloring, are burned in a stove in the Sistine Chapel.

In 2005 the black smoke from the first ballot was seen at 8:05 p.m. In 2013, black smoke from the first ballot was spotted at 7:41 p.m.

On the second day of the conclave and moving forward, there can be four rounds of voting each day, but only two smoke signals. That is because if the first ballot of the morning or of the afternoon session does not result in an election, a second vote begins immediately, and the two ballots are burned together.

During the conclave that elected Pope Francis, the set schedule called for the cardinals to celebrate Mass each morning at 8:15 a.m. in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace and then go into the Sistine Chapel at 9:30 a.m. After a brief prayer, the first ballot of the day was to be cast, meaning that if a pope were elected, the smoke would be seen at about 10:30 a.m. If no candidate received the required two-thirds of the votes, the cardinals would vote again, and the two ballots would be burned at about noon, before the cardinals were to return to the Domus Sanctae Marthae for lunch and an afternoon break.

If this conclave follows the schedule set in 2013, the cardinals will return to the Sistine Chapel at 4 p.m. and continue voting. If someone were to be elected on the first afternoon ballot, the smoke would be visible at about 5:30 p.m. If no one was elected, the smoke from evening ballots would come shortly before the cardinals were to return to the Domus Sanctae Marthae at about 7:30 p.m. for dinner and to sleep.