Does the Holy Spirit Choose The Pope?
Inside a Papal Conclave: Explaining the process and the Holy Spirit's role in the elections
**Welcome to the Tuesday Theology Reflection post. As always, this Tuesday post is free for everyone.
If you like this post, and want to support my work, consider subscribing and become a paid subscriber!**
Disclaimer: This is a theological reflection on the Holy Spirit’s role in the election of popes and an attempt to explain the interesting and complex conclave process. This is not my take on our Holy Father Pope Francis, or on his current health situation, nor does it have anything to do with who his successor may or may not be.
Update 4/21/2025: Please pray for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis. We pray that he may see the face of God in eternity forever. Requiescat in pace.
Pray also for the cardinal-electors, who will be gathering in Rome over the next 15-20 days to begin the conclave process. Pray that they may discern with fidelity to the Holy Spirit in electing the man best fit to assume the chair of St. Peter.
“Since Jesus said the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church, it is the Holy Spirit Himself that chooses the Pope in each Conclave!”
Sentiments like this, or those that would echo similar ideas, are quite common in the Church. The prevailing wisdom amongst many Catholics of good will is that the Holy Spirit elects the Pope. However, is that actually what the Church teaches? Does the Church actually teach that the Holy Spirit Himself, working through each of the electing Cardinals, selects the next Pope?
In this article, I would like to briefly reflect on (1) what is the Conclave, (2) how do the Cardinals elect a Pope, and (3) does the Holy Spirit select the man who will be Pope?
To completely understand this topic, it is necessary that we understand how God’s Providence works in history. So, before reading this, it would be helpful to stop and read the article I wrote on God’s Active and Passive Will.
Now, let us first explain the Conclave process and how a Pope is elected.
The Conclave
As most Catholics, and even many people in the non-Catholic world are aware, the Pope is elected within a “Conclave.” This secretive gathering of Cardinals from around the world elicits widespread interest from media outlets to governments.
Before we get into the specifics of our question, namely, whether or not the Holy Spirit elects the Pope, it is essential that we first understand this voting event.
The total history of how popes have been elected is, unfortunately, beyond the scope of this essay. However, the brief history of the Conclave process will be beneficial in exploring an answer to our question.
The conclave process was first outlined and specified in a Constitution at the direction of Pope Gregory X at the Second Council of Lyon in 1274. The goal of this document was to enact a concrete process for the election of future popes. This Constitution was prompted because before, the process could be long and arduous, therefore throwing the Church and the European continent in flux for, occasionally, years at a time before a new pope was elected. Therefore, the Constitution was drafted in which specific guidance was issued for future elections.
This Papal Bull, officially promulgated on July 7, 1274, was called “Ubi Periculum.” It set forth very concrete and stringent rules with which future conclaves were to take place. For instance, it set forth the locations, the exact time frame for the elections, the secrecy—under pain of excommunication—with which the conclaves were to take place, and even the extent to which food was to be withheld if the elections lasted longer than needed.
This Bull was received with varying degrees of acceptance. In the proceeding papacies, these laws were thrown out, changed, or restored, depending on who sat the Papal throne. Finally, it wasn’t until the papacy of Boniface VIII(1294-1303) that Ubi Periculum of Gregory X was made official in canon law. Since that official action, all subsequent papal elections have taken place in the conclave.
Today, the Conclave process still resembles the almost 800 years of tradition. Notably, a few more rooms have been added, such as the kitchen for cooking the meals of the Cardinal-electors.
The Current Conclave Process as It Will Unfold
The current rules governing the conclave and the papal interregnum are found in the Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis1, issued by Pope St. John Paul II and then further amended by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 and 2013 in De Aliquibus Mutationibus in Normis de Electione Romani Pontificis2 and Normas Nonnullas.3
As soon as a pope dies, a series of processes are set in motion. To begin, official Papal actions must cease, such as the appointing of any new bishops. As only the pope himself has that authority, the Church, in a real sense, must wait in limbo for a new Successor of St. Peter. The governing authority of the Church, in absence of the pope, moves to the College of Cardinals.
Only Cardinals under the age of 80 are allowed to participate in the conclave. The conclave must begin no less than 15 full days after the pope has died, or ceded the Chair of St. Peter in Pope Benedict XVI’s case, and no more than 20. On the morning in which the conclave begins, the Cardinals gather in St. Peter’s Basilica to participate in a Votive Mass for the election of the next pope. “In the afternoon they gather in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace. Invoking the assistance of the Holy Spirit with the Veni Creator Spiritu, they process to the Sistine Chapel.”4 After this has taken place, the Cardinal electors all make a solemn oath:
to observe the prescriptions of the law governing the election, to observe the secrecy obliged, to not assist any secular power which may try to influence the election, and if elected to faithfully carry out the Petrine Office, and to protect the spiritual and temporal rights of the Holy See.5
Once all non-Cardinal-electors have left the Sistine Chapel, voting can begin. By paper ballot, the Cardinals vote and then proceed to the front of the Sistine Chapel and place their ballot in a large chalice. The three Scrutineers, “three Cardinal Electors chosen by lot to gather and count the ballots,”6 then count the ballots. One man must receive a two-thirds majority to be elected. If no man gets to that number, new ballots are distributed again and the process is repeated. If there is still not majority, the ballots from both sessions are burned to produce black smoke to signal to the world that no Pope has been chosen. Each day, a total of four votes occur. This continues until one man receives the necessary two-thirds majority. Once that occurs, the ballots are burned to produce white smoke, the new Pope accepts his election, chooses a name, and then the cardinals gather on the balcony of St. Peter’s where the senior Cardinal Deacon announces to the world “Habemus Papam!”
The Holy Spirit’s Role in the Election
Now, to get to the heart of our question, in this elaborate and juridical process of the Conclave, does the Holy Spirit Himself choose the man who will become Pope?
At the outset, it is critical to remember that in Sacred Scripture, in the Gospels in particular, Our Lord gave His authority to Peter who would, in his person, continue Our Lord’s authority in the Church. We see this when Our Lord states:
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.7
Without going into an entire exegesis of this passage, it will suit our purpose here to state that we can clearly see that Our Lord gave Peter particular authority, which would continue after Our Lord was gone, and charged Peter to be the foundation of the Church in His stay. As the Church has always understood, this Apostolic authority, in particular this Petrine authority, has been handed down to every subsequent Bishop of Rome. Therefore, every pope is charged with the same thing Our Lord entrusted to Peter. Tied up in this succession, we have the promise that “the powers of death shall not prevail against it.” Our Lord Himself promised that His Church would not fail.
This promise of continuation, however, does not guarantee a care-free and problem-free existence. I need not elaborate any further on that reality. This is a crucial fact missed by many people, including Catholics, who seek to justify the “demise” of the Church by pointing to its most sinful members. The Church is indeed full of very sinful people. After all, every human being is sinful, so what would make the hierarchy of the Church immune from that human reality?
This then gets us to our main concern regarding the election of Popes: does the Holy Spirit choose the man that is elected Pope?
The current binding Apostolic Constitution that governs the Conclave, Universi Dominici Gregis, issued by Pope St. John Paul II and further amended by Pope Benedict XVI, states that during the vacancy of the Holy See, as well as during the conclave itself, those Cardinals above the age of 80 who cannot vote and participate in the Conclave should be urging the faithful to prayer and celebrating liturgies in the Patriarchal Basilicas of Rome. By doing so, they can support “the work of the electors with fervent prayers and supplications to the Holy Spirit and imploring for them (the Cardinal-electors) the light needed to make their choice before God alone.”8 John Paul II is making clear the need for intercessory prayers on behalf of the electors so they will be given wisdom from the Holy Spirit in their act of voting. The implication is that the choice is really theirs.
In a subsequent line from the introduction, Pope St. John Paul II, when decreeing that the Conclave continue to take place in the Sistine Chapel, states that this place is most appropriate because in it, “the electors can more easily dispose themselves to accept the interior movements of the Holy Spirit.9 Again, the imploring of the Holy Spirit is made on behalf of the electors so that they will listen, know, and accept the direction of the Holy Spirit in their voting. This again reveals that the Holy Spirit plays a crucial role in the election, but real space is reserved for free will.
Before he became pope himself, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, when asked whether or not the Holy Spirit chooses the Pope, asserted in an oft-quoted statement:
I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the pope. . . . I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined.10
This statement, I believe, best summarizes the debate. It is not so much that the Holy Spirit chooses the pope, as that would pose questions regarding the free will of the Cardinal-electors. Rather, the Holy Spirit acts as a guide. Therefore, the Holy Spirit also guides the votes of the Cardinal-electors. As was stated above, there are numerous instances in the Conclave process where the Cardinals invoke the Holy Spirit to guide their decision making and ultimately their voting.
Our Lord, and the Holy Spirit, ensure that the gates of death will not prevail against the Church, or, as Cardinal Ratzinger put it plainly, “that the thing cannot be totally ruined.” This in no way guarantees that the right man, or the perfect man, is chosen every time. Looking at the history of the popes, it is abundantly clear that the best men have not always been chosen as the Successor of Peter. Nevertheless, the Church has continued in spite of the particularly egregious faults of those men.
Another key to understanding this reality is the difference between God’s active and passive will. It is more accurate to see the passive will of God at work in the conclaves. God works in history. His providence governs all of creation. It is the prayer of the Cardinals that they will, to the best of their abilities, listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and elect the man best-able to fulfill the ministry of pope. As we can see from a cursory glance at history, it is possible that the previous men chosen were in accord with the Spirit, but it is equally true that some men chosen were certainly not the best candidates.
Final Conclusion
Ultimately, the works of divine providence, and the action of the Holy Spirit, are a mystery. It is impossible for us to fully see the workings of God in the past, present, and future. It is incumbent upon us, however, to be docile to the promptings of the Holy Spirit so that we can, to the best of our abilities, follow God’s will. It is in that realm that the Cardinal-electors pray, discern, and vote according to their consciences for who they believe will be the best man to lead Christ’s Church.
Thank you for reading!
If you learned something in this essay and want to further support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber to unlock the full content to help you learn Catholic theology.
Pope St. John Paul II, Universi Dominici Gregis. February 22, 1996. At vatican.va. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_22021996_universi-dominici-gregis.html.
Pope Benedict XVI, De Aliquibus Mutationibus in Normis de Electione Romani Pontificis. June 11, 2007. At vatican.va. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/la/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20070611_de-electione.html.
Pope Benedict XVI, Normas Nonnullas. February 22, 2013. At vatican.va. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20130222_normas-nonnullas.html.
EWTN. Papal Interregnum. At https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/holysee/interregnum/conclave.
Papal Interregnum. At https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/holysee/interregnum/conclave.
Ibid.
Matthew 16:18-19
Pope St. John Paul II, Universi Dominici Gregis. Introduction. (Emphasis is my own).
Ibid.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. On German television in 1997.
Interesting dissertation. A few points.
#1. Boniface VIII was an invalid pope. He pressured his predecessor, Celestine V, to invalidly resign, as well as writing the invalid canons that "allow" an impossibility, as the pope cannot resign. Therefore, Pope "Francis" has also been invalid. As for the legality of his appointments to bishoprics and the cardinaliate that will be a thorny issue for the legitimate pope who will prove his legitimacy by faithfully fulfilling the requests of Our Lady of Fatima. (Realistically, at this point nothing short of Peter and Paul in the sky with flaming swords is going to resolve the current Apostasy, but all in God's good time.)
#2. The whole conclave process is not of Divine origin. Both Pope St Peter and Pope St Linus appointed their successors, which I actually think would be the best way as it would take all the politics out of the process, and allow the church to function smoothly from the death of one pope to the next. Maybe in saner times, that policy will be restored.
#3. The Holy Ghost deciding upon the appointment of popes smacks of predestination. I suppose, by the same token, the Holy Ghost might determine who wins the Stupor Bowl, or who is going to win World War Three.
#4. Since the promulgation of Pastor Aeternus at Vatican I, Catholics have believed in the SuperPopes. The Church is Apostolic, not Papal. While the Holy Father does have full, immediate, and complete jurisdiction in governing Holy Mother Church, he cannot simply do anything he wants, but must respect Immemorial Custom, the Deposit of the Faith, and Apostolic Tradition., as well as, of course, the Divine Law. Our Lady of Fatima, by insisting upon the Collegial Consecration of Russia by the Pope in union with all the bishops in peace and Communion with the Holy Seat, was calling upon Holy Mother Church to exercise its Apolicity, and also calling upon the pontiff to exercise the fullness of his power and jurisdiction, by ordering the bishops to do so.
https://fidesetratiobr.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-my-american-catholic