The date is now set. On Tuesday, March 12, the cardinal electors, all 115 of them, will enter in solemn procession, following a special pontifical mass, their home away from home, the Sistine Chapel. Here they will deliberate, discern and decide on the man who would be Peter.
They will spend their sleeping hours elsewhere, they will be transported from their close-to-modest digs by shuttle to the chapel where they will follow an established ritual that is as impressive as it is arcane, and they will diligently abide by the protocols prescribed for the election of the next Roman Pontiff.
We are now in the phase known as the conclave. Derived from the Latin "con clavis," meaning "with key," the historical and etymological derivation is as intriguing as the process itself. Pope Gregory X established the conclave in 1274 as a way of ensuring that the disruptive three-year interregnum that preceded his election would never occur again. And it hasn't.
The cardinals are ritualistically sealed into the sacred chambers until such time as they have made their choice. But they are allowed out--not for general commerce with the multitudes and not for indeterminate periods of time -- because they are not imprisoned only sequestered doing God's business.
And the quicker the better. The last election took two days but this one may take longer, in large part because of the unusual departure from Peter's seat of the previous occupant, the spate of controversies around the identification and prioritizing of the issues facing the Roman Church, the swirling rumors around palace politics, and extra-papal scandals that continue to dog the electors.
Although the likelihood that the man they choose to succeed Benedict XVI is one of their number, there have been non-cardinals elected in the past. Urban VI, elected in the 14th century, does not offer a healthy incentive to look outside the College of Cardinals. Facing an angry mob that threatened the conclavists with instant slaughter should they choose a non-Italian, the cardinals opted for survival over questionable martyrdom and recruited the very Italian Archbishop of Bari as their man. The prospect of collective massacre does concentrate the mind.
There are, however, happier examples of non-cardinals becoming Peter. In the 12th century the Cistercian Abbot of Saints Vincent and Anastasius outside of Rome, Bernardo Pignatelli, was elected pope and took the name of Eugene III. He proved to be competent and discerning; the right person at the right time.
Should it happen that a natural candidate not rise to the surface, that a consensus is devilishly difficult to achieve over the inside pool, there may be, undoubtedly would be, an array of serious possibilities to be found extra-conclave. It just takes a bold imagination, a bold visioning, a bold gesture.
After all, they have a precedent for such boldness in Benedict's own mode of departing.
