(00:00:00) Father Urban Wagner is a vice Chancellor and vigor for the religious in the Archdiocese of st. Paul and Minneapolis. He's what's known as a Canon lawyer. That is one who's made a study of church laws father Urban welcome. Will you explain in a little more detail? Exactly. What's meant by a Canon lawyer first? (00:00:17) Well Pat, I suppose a Canon lawyer would be an individual like myself although both men and women are studying Church law now and what we do is to try to explain to others what the rules and regulations of the church are in regard to the administration of sacraments. As far as the ordinary administration of the church is concerned one of the things that that I do since I am working in the Archdiocese is to work with the with the Archbishop and also with Bishop Kenny and Bishop Dudley to help them in the Administration of the Archdiocese particularly as in regard to the laws of the church. (00:01:07) And so you've made studies of the areas of current legislation that would determine the selection of a pope. Yes, depending on the reports we hear there are now either 114 or 111 Catholic Cardinals in conclave today. That's the largest group of cardinals in history. Why is that group so large and will the size of the group have any effect on the selection of a pope? (00:01:30) Well, the group is so large because Pope Paul and 0 in quite recent years decided that there needed to be a greater representation from all over the world. There were so many different areas that were not being represented by Cardinals. And of course, we consider Cardinals to be as it were the princes of the church since they are the ones who have this grave duty of acting the successor of st. Peter The other part of the question was what Pat I (00:02:08) forgot will the size of the group have any effect on the selection of a boat. (00:02:12) I'm sure the size of the group will have some effect in so far as the it's going to take longer because when the balloting starts the it's going to take a much longer time for each of the Cardinals to make the actual ballot are to you know to cast his vote. Otherwise, I don't think it's going to make any difference except that other countries are now going to be represented and they're going to bring their needs and their concerns to Rome and I'm sure that in the days that have preceded the actual conclave that they have discussed the needs that they have in their own particular part of the (00:02:51) world. For example, the Latin American countries now have the largest delegation of cardinals that they've ever had and they're represented for the selection. Correct? (00:02:59) Yes, and also the India and the From Asia and from all from Africa particularly. There are many Cardinals from from that area and they all know the particular needs of their Church. (00:03:15) What exactly is the authority of a cardinal? (00:03:19) a cardinal actually has very little authority asked Cardinal because of the of the duty that he has of taking part in the election of the of the Pope. He sorta gets Authority by accretion. You might say but his a his authority is going to come from the fact that he is either a head of a congregation in Rome are because he is ahead of a diocese in some part of the world. So he would be what we would call the ordinary the (00:03:55) bishop the local (00:03:57) ruling Bishop of a particular territory. And in addition to that he is a cardinal which gives him the right to elect a pope when ever the need arises (00:04:09) now I've heard that a cardinal does not have to be a bishop is untrue. (00:04:15) Not anymore at one time it was the Cardinal could be either a deacon a priest or a bishop. In fact, even now there there are ranks of cardinals. We have the Cardinal priests the Cardinal deacons and the Cardinal Bishops and each one has the the senior member. And since Pope Paul decision, it is necessary for all Cardinals to be Bishops. However, the the different ranks still Purdue or and not only that but they will have if the disk Enclave where to last long enough then the different ranks would have special duties to perform (00:05:03) speaking of the conclave. There is a lot of confusion about exactly what goes on what procedure is used to select a pope. And what does the Catholic Church canon law dictate. (00:05:14) Well when we when we're talking about a conclave pet what we do we are talking about the procedure that is used by the church in order to elect a spiritual leader. I think more than anything else but we have to keep in mind is the fact that this is a spiritual happening that the Cardinals who are coming together when they go into conclave it is as if they are going on Retreat because this morning 4:30 in the afternoon over in Rome the Cardinals gathered together in Saint Peter's Church. There was a Solemn Mass to the Holy Spirit asking that the Holy Spirit would guide them as they begin the election process all over the world people are praying that they will be enlightened by God and that all of the human ideas that they might have in the human aspirations that that they will be there but that they will not take precedence over the inspiration that they Hopefully get during the time of the election. So after the mass they go in procession to the to the Sistine Chapel. They go inside now along with them will be two doctors a surgeon and the general practitioner that would be nurses. There will be maintenance people. There will be electricians and electronic people and there will be the captain of the Swiss guard who will be in charge of the internal security. If you will (00:07:08) it's back up for just a moment. Why are these different people coming into the conclave with the (00:07:11) Cardinals? They're coming into the conclave with the Cardinals because none of the Cardinals once they go inside may leave. So if they get sick if it's an ordinary small sickness, they will have that taken care of right inside if someone Needs serious help because of a serious illness that Cardinal may leave and after the sickness is over if the conclave last long enough for enough along enough, he may come back. But if one of the other people who are sick the likely one of the cooks if that person has to leave that individual may not come back into the conclave area. When I say that say that the area is sealed off. I mean literally they actually seal it locked in there locked in. Yes, and actually archways have been blocked off so that physically one cannot go from one area to another without passing through a certain door that is always under surveillance. (00:08:15) What about the (00:08:16) electrician's the electrician's of course, we'll be there because with a hundred and fourteen people we're going to have to have microphones on the like and they will take care of this the electronic people are there to see that the This is not bugged because the whole conclave is to be held in absolute (00:08:33) secrecy. Why the secrecy (00:08:36) the secrecy I believe is because not because the Cardinals are afraid of what people might think but they are they want to secrecy so that there will not be any interruptions given so that they will truly be able to stay in Retreat during this time because an awful lot of praying go is going on and like most Retreats are done in private. So this type of retreat also should be done in private. (00:09:07) Now what does canon law say about how the election process goes? Okay. (00:09:14) When once they get inside pad, what they will do they will elect by lat three people who will be what we would be might say screw taters and tellers. Okay, then they will elect by lat somebody card and these are all Cardinals Cardinals who will go to those who are too ill to come to the actual assembly to pick up their votes. Everybody takes an oath of secrecy. The the idea is that They do not want people who are there to leak information to the outside because this could just caused an awful lot of speculation and I have with me a newspaper from the from the local archdiocese in which they talk about the frontrunners the frontrunners actually are anybody's guess (00:10:15) and all the reports that we've heard him. Yes, six (00:10:17) seven. Yes. I mean, these are just a probably educated guesses, but they're just guesses. So once once the people are together and they have taken the oath of secrecy. They will go to their rooms of very small area pet. It has a bed in it. It has a washer washer of washbasin and it has it has a play has a chair and that's about it very austere and Areas, these little cells have been erected especially for the conclave. They spend most of their time there when they are not actually in session. (00:10:59) How often do they go in (00:11:00) session they go in session a morning session afternoon session and sometimes an evening session (00:11:06) and it is during the sessions that they (00:11:07) vote during the sessions that they vote and they usually have two ballots for each session except the evening session when ordinarily they have just one ballot. (00:11:18) I've heard that there are some ceremonial procedure in the vote itself. Would you explain that a little bit? Yes (00:11:25) before they actually have the voting the man who is the senior Cardinal will give an exhortation a spiritual excitation then each of the Cardinals and remember we have the Sistine Chapel and they're seated facing each other along both sides to Rose. They will mark their ballot and they will fold it over and then one by one they will go up to a front table and at the front table they will kneel in prayer. And the length of time of prayer will depend upon the individual the while he is there he will hold up the ballot and he will affirm that in this is allowed to that. Everyone will hear it that he affirms that the ballot that he is casting is to the best of his knowledge. The man that he believes is best qualified to be pope. Then he puts it into the urn and he goes back and takes his place each Cardinal coming forward Neil's to pray he makes the affirmation that he is voting for the person that he believes should is best qualified. Then he goes back to his place. So with a hundred and eleven are hundred and fourteen as the case may be It will take an better than an hour for one balloting to take place. (00:12:56) No after the votes are counted what then very (00:13:00) interesting because after the after the votes are counted and remember Pat those who are who are too ill to come we have the three Cardinals going to pick up their ballots. And before they go they have this this empty box that this locked and they show that it's empty. They lock it then they go to this to this man who is ill who marches own ballot if he can if he cannot then one of the Cardinals is sworn to secrecy to Mark the ballot for him that is put into the slot of this box. They go to all of those who are too ill then they come back in the count them say we have five ballots. We have five Cardinals who are sick. Then those five are put in with the rest of them and they're all mixed up. Then they open the they take out all of the ballots and they count them to make sure that we don't have too many. And after they are counted they will pass it to the first screw Tater who just reads it. Pass it to the second screw Tater who reads it the third screw Tater reads it aloud because everyone in the room is keeping tally. Of course after the third screw Tater reads it he has a string and a needle. And he puts the ballot on this string and he keeps doing this till all of the ballots are red. Then he ties a string together. There are all of the ballots. These are the things that are burned you see on the needle and thread on the needle and thread and after they have had the first ballot if there is no election then immediately the go to the second balloting. And they do the same thing and after the second ballot has the has finished and there is no one elected. They take all of the ballots and all of the tallies all they're all collected their brought over and they're burned. And in the old days, of course what they did they put in some wet straw to burn along with them. This is what made the black smoke. (00:15:14) What are they do nowadays? Probably put in which draw (00:15:18) that again I imagine because I'm sure that that they you know, the the the use of the smoke is such an old tradition that I imagine that they're going to continue this. It's just such a beautiful thing (00:15:29) before we went on the air. You mentioned that a pope may be selected other than by-election. Yes plane that (00:15:38) according to the papal Constitution put out by Pope Paul in 1975 19. So it's it's a very recent document Cardinal may be elected by ballotine as we just talked about also by inspiration and inspiration would take place when the Cardinals come in and as they are seated there someone under the inspiration of the spirit. Believes that only one man in this group or whoever it might be should be elected and that he's just stands up and says, I believe that Cardinal so-and-so should be the new pope and I nominate him and the rest of the Cardinals do the same thing. This is by inspiration. The other way is by compromise compromise would take place, you know with a hundred eleven or a hundred fourteen Cardinals it is. It might be very difficult for them to come to a consensus. Humanly speaking. And they might say it's just too unwieldy. So what we will do we will elect usually from 9 to 15 some uneven number of people. We will give them the responsibility of electing a pulp. (00:17:01) They can a member of that group be elected Pope (00:17:04) as far as I know Patty can it is a the the general rules of voting. Is that a person may not vote for himself. And but there's no reason why if I'm in a committee that I cannot vote for the other members of the committee. So I would say yes that a member of that Committee of that group of that compromise group could be elected this boat. (00:17:28) Okay. The selection process is over man is selected as Pope what happened ceremonially (00:17:34) after the man has been elected Pope. They're all seated there. Originally, they used to have what the use of about Aquino over the throne (00:17:45) each. What does that mean? Okay. It's just a sort of a (00:17:52) sort of a sort of his little ceiling a wooden ceiling, you know, that was over over the chair that he was Seated on and it was movable up and down sure, and so when the pope was elected he has remained up in the all the others when others went down as an indication that he is the one who was now in charge. Bye. We've had the very fact that he is gets two thirds plus one of the votes in the first few days of voting does not mean that he is out automatically Pope. Oh, no, they come to him and they very formally asked him. (00:18:32) Will you accept (00:18:34) only when he says I will does he become Pope the acceptance of the office is required before he gets the authority of being the pope of the Roman Catholic (00:18:47) Church who announces it to the world that there is a new (00:18:49) pope. Well after the after the election has taken place all of the Cardinals come up and pay give him honor and and pledge obedience to him. Then they have have prayer they go outside by the way. Now they have the white smoke you see After that ballot, they go outside and the the senior Cardinal will announce on the on the balcony to the world that habemus papam. We (00:19:20) have a pope. And then announces the name of (00:19:23) then announces the name because and I'm glad you mentioned this because after he is asked the question, do you wish our will you accept this and he answers? Yes, then the next question is by what name do you wish to be called and immediately he tells like you know like Pope Paul took the name of Paul John took the name of John and whoever the new one is will have to indicate what his name (00:19:51) is that's fascinating. I'm sorry to say we're out of time. That's a very very interesting story of how a pope is chosen. Thank you Father. Urban Wagner father Wagner is the vice Chancellor of the Archdiocese of st. Paul and Minneapolis. This is Pat Kessler in st. Paul.