Pope Pius the Tenth

by F. A. Forbes

"I venture to disagree with your Eminence," was the reply, "and on these grounds. I hope—for I think it is permissible—for a cardinal who resides in his diocese. Not that the cardinals of the curia are wanting in breadth or in experience, but as a rule those prelates who live in the provinces are in immediate contact with the people. They have a better chance of seeing things from the inside than those who occupy an official post in Rome, important and indispensable though these may be. But of necessity the non-resident cardinals are less well known in Rome than those of the curia, their candidature must therefore be slower and the election longer."

The election of a pope is one of the most solemn deeds of the Church, and is safeguarded by strict regulations. On the death of the pontiff the Cardinal Chamberlain, as representative of the Sacred College, assumes charge of the papal household, notifying to all the cardinals of the Church the death of the pope and the impending election. Every cardinal has the right to vote in the conclave, but he must be present in person to do so. Each one may take with him a secretary, who is generally a priest, and a servant. In the meanwhile a large portion of the Vatican palace has been walled off and divided into apartments or cells for the conclavists. Access to it can be had through one door alone, which is left open until the conclave begins, when it is closed and barred from without by the Marshal of the Conclave, and from within by the Cardinal Chamberlain. All communication with the outside world is then at an end until the result of the election is announced.

The conclave opens officially (now) not later than eighteen days after the pope's death. The cardinals assist at Mass and receive holy communion from the hands of the Cardinal Dean, who solemnly adjures them to elect as pope him whom they believe to be the most worthy. They assemble in the Sistine Chapel, where the actual voting takes place. The stall of each cardinal has a canopy overhead and a small writing-desk in front. The door is shut and bolted and the voting begins. Each cardinal having written the name of his candidate on the paper provided, deposits it in a chalice on the altar, taking as he does so the required oath: "I call to witness the Lord Christ, who will be my judge, that I am electing the one whom before God I think ought to be elected." The ballots are then counted and read aloud, and if no candidate has received the necessary number of votes, they are burnt in a little stove together with a handful of damp straw. As the chimney of this stove extends through a window of the chapel, the colour of the smoke or sfumata can be clearly seen by those outside. Not until the election is made are the ballots burnt without the accompanying straw, when the clear white smoke is the first notification to the people that the pope is elected. Voting takes place twice a day, morning and evening, until a majority of two-thirds of the votes has been attained.

The veto was the alleged right of certain Catholic rulers to object to the election of a cardinal of whom they do not approve. It was exercised rarely and has never been formally approved by the Church. Although Pius IX had forbidden any interference by the secular power in a papal election, an attempt was made to exercise the veto at the conclave which resulted in the election of Pius X. At the third scrutiny, in which Cardinal Rampolla came first with twenty-nine votes, Cardinal Puzyna, Bishop of Cracow, who had accepted the mandate of the Austrian government in the name of the Emperor Francis Joseph, read (it is said after signs of severe embarrassment) a declaration excluding Cardinal Rampolla, without giving any reason for the exclusion.

The cardinals protested against the interference, and the votes in Cardinal Rampolla's favour were found to have increased by one in the evening scrutiny. But Cardinal Sarto's had been mounting steadily from the beginning and continued to do so until they reached the number of fifty.[*]

[*] The opinions of those best qualified to judge seem to agree that Cardinal Rampolla's failure to be elected was quite uninfluenced by the Austrian action. Soon after his election Pius X definitively abolished the exercise of the veto.

At five o'clock on the 31st of July the Cardinals, sixty-three in all, assembled at the Vatican. At nightfall the last door was closed and bricked up; the conclave had begun. At the first scrutiny Cardinal Rampolla had twenty-four votes, Cardinal Gotti seven, and Cardinal Sarto five. There was nothing alarming in this; but when, at the second scrutiny, the votes in favour of the Patriarch of Venice had doubled, and at the third doubled again, it was another matter, and his anguish was obvious to all. With trembling voice and tears in his eyes, he spoke to the Cardinals, begging them to give up all thought of him. "I am unworthy, I am not qualified," he pleaded, "forget me."

"It was that very adjuration, his grief, his profound humility and wisdom," said Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, "that made us think of him all the more; we learnt to know him from his words as we could never have known him by hearsay." The voting continued. In the evening of the second day Cardinal Sarto, who at the last scrutiny had obtained twenty-four votes, on returning to his room found several of his colleagues who had come to beg him not to refuse the burden if God should call upon him to bear it. "I was one of those who went to visit him in his cell in the evening, to try to induce him to accept," said the American cardinal. "Those who had gone before had shaken his resistance, so that I almost hoped he would resign himself to what seemed to be inevitable." On the third day the votes for Cardinal Sarto went on increasing, until on the morning of the fourth day fifty out of the sixty-two were in his favour, eight more than the forty-two required for a valid election.

They asked him if he would accept, but he had already accepted in his heart after a most grievous inward struggle. "I accept," he said, with tears.

"What name will you take?" they asked him. "I will be called Pius," he replied.