Jimmy Akin briefly summarizes how the current Papal mode of election evolved to its current form and names some reading material from Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI on the subject.
Transcript:
Host: Let’s go to Carl in Wishing Waters, Arizona which is an awesome name, watching on Twitter, which, I guess that means Periscope, and so Carl, you are on with Jimmy Akin.
Caller: My question is a two-parter. How did the Church determine the current election process to elect a new Pope? And also, how did the Church determine that Linus was the successor to Peter, and do we know the method in which Linus was elected?
Jimmy: Okay, the answer to the last one is, we don’t know in any detail what the method was. We have early bishop lists that indicate that Linus was the successor of Peter, although they’re not all actually agreed. Some of them portray Clement as the successor of Peter, but the ordinarily received account is that Clement wasn’t the immediate successor of Peter, that the sequence went Linus, and then Cletus–or Anacletus, to give a fuller version of his name–and then Clement. And that’s the position that is taken in the bishop lists for the bishop of Rome that is the majority position.
But we don’t have enough data about the selection process they used at the time. It could have been that Peter appointed him directly, it could have been that there was an election among the clergy of Rome, we don’t know.
In terms of the process that the Church uses today, it’s something that evolved over time. Basically, it is a kind of election among the clergy of Rome. The Cardinals, even though they may be stationed–most of them–in various places with pastoral ministries throughout the world, like, you know, there are a number of Cardinals here in America–nevertheless, they also are appointed to positions in parishes in Rome. So the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angels, for example–actually the current Archbishop of Los Angeles, Archbishop Gomez, is not a Cardinal at this point–but say his predecessor, Cardinal Mahoney, he would have a pastoral assignment here in America, in Los Angeles, but he would also have a titular pastoral assignment at a Church in Rome.
And so when the Pope would die, or now, resign, the Cardinal electors would be a subset of the clergy of Rome–the highest ranking clergy in Rome, being Cardinals–and they would gather and elect the Pope. And that’s a process that evolved over time. It’s certainly been done by Cardinals for centuries. Most Cardinals are also bishops, although there have been some exceptions to that.
In terms of the current regulations, they were established by John Paul II in a document, it’s an apostolic constitution, called Universi Dominice Gregis, and it’s on the Vatican website. Subsequent to the release of that, Pope Benedict issued a couple of motu proprio that made some slight adjustments to those provisions, and those are also on the Vatican website. So the rules are out there and for everybody to read, and you can check them out at Vatican.va.