By Jason Godin
Mar 11, 2013
As the cardinals gather to elect the next Bishop of Rome and Successor of St. Peter, it is time to reflect on what this event means to the world and to us personally as Catholics.
A conclave has always intrigued a waiting world, with its legitimate secrecy, seriousness and drama. Men dressed in red processing prayerfully into the Sistine Chapel, heavy doors locked in their wake, folded ballots placed singularly atop a gold plate before dropping into a large urn, results counted, a specified majority verified. Then all related papers promptly burned, white smoke, Latin proclaimed from the high center balcony in St. Peter’s Square: “Habemus papam!” We have a pope! A new pontiff blesses the multitudes. The entire process never ceases to capture even the most faithless of imaginations.
Yet a conclave isn’t simply high-profile pageantry. It is a universal opportunity to learn about a true treasure shared by the Catholic Church. A new pope emerges from a conclave with more than a new name. His cardinal brothers have entrusted him with an extraordinary responsibility – to witness to the entire world, with humility, the teachings of Christ and the traditions of the apostolic Church. It is, in short, a model sacrifice of love for Love.
Appropriately, as conclaves cause change, conditions and conduct for conclaves have changed a bit within modern memory. The long mourning period before beginning a conclave need no longer apply for a papal vacancy caused by resignation. More cardinals arrive to Rome from geographical distances once unimagined. Greater numbers of cardinals are “young” enough to participate. Cathedral bells also now ring together with rising rings of white smoke to signal a selection.