Q: Who can be elected Pope?
A: Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to be a cardinal to be elected pope. In fact, you don’t even have to be a bishop, priest or deacon. You do have to be a baptized male. Canon Law states: “The Roman Pontiff obtains full and supreme power in the Church by his acceptance of legitimate election together with episcopal consecration. Therefore, a person elected to the supreme pontificate who is marked with episcopal character [i.e. is a bishop] obtains this power from the moment of acceptance. If the person elected lacks episcopal [i.e. is not a bishop], however, he is to be ordained a bishop immediately” (can. 332, §1). Implied in this, therefore, is that the person elected would need to be male and baptized, as required for ordination to any of the holy orders — deacon, priest or bishop — in the Catholic Church.
It has been a very long time since the election of someone other than a member of the College of Cardinals as pope. The last non-cardinal pope was Pope Urban VI, who reigned from 1378-1389, soon after the Avignon papacy. Though not a cardinal, he was a bishop (Archbishop of Bari) when he was elected pope.
The last pope who was not a bishop at the time of his election was Pope Gregory XVI, who reigned from 1831-1846. At the time of his election to the papacy, he was a monk and priest who had been created a cardinal. How does that work? You don’t have to be a bishop to be a cardinal, which is not an order or “rank” within the sacrament of holy orders. It is an honorary title given to some (usually bishops) in acknowledgement of their contribution to the Church. It also grants them certain privileges, chief among them to participate in the conclave to elect a pope, as long as they are under the age of 80.
Curiously, while the cardinal electors must be under the age of 80, they may elect someone over the age of 80 to be pope. I’m still scratching my head on that one. If they are worried about the mental faculties of the electors, why not those of the elected?
In 1962, Pope John XXIII established a rule that cardinals should be bishops and, therefore, if named a cardinal would be ordained bishop. However, this can be dispensed with, as is often the case for cardinal theologians. Recent examples would be Avery Cardinal Dulles and Henri Cardinal De Lubac, both influential 20th century theologians. Another famous example would be St. John Henry Cardinal Newman.
As an aside, why do we put the title “Cardinal” in the middle of their name instead of at the beginning? I don’t know. We have lots of weird rules. In all seriousness, the only article on that I could find said that it had to do with the custom of putting a person’s title after their first name (and before last names were common).
In early Church history, there were priests and deacons who were elected pope, for example Pope St. Callixtus I (218-222), who was a deacon at the time of his election. Even a few lay men (non-ordained) were elected pope and subsequently ordained.
As interesting as all this is, it is highly unlikely that anyone other than one of the cardinals will be elected to succeed Pope Francis, so no need to wait by your phone when you see the white smoke billowing from the Sistine Chapel.
(Father Thom Hennen serves as the pastor of Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport and vicar general for the Diocese of Davenport. Send questions to messenger@davenportdiocese.org)
