Q: How do God’s will and the Holy Spirit play a role in a conclave?
A: I think ultimately, events in the life of the church like conclaves bring us to the mysterious place where God’s providential ordering of history intersects with human free will.
On one level, there is nothing miraculous about a conclave. That is, the assembled cardinals are human men who use their human powers of reason and prudential judgment to vote on a decision. In real life I think it’s fair to assume that the vast majority of cardinals today are essentially good men who will undertake this responsibility with the care it deserves, but in theory there is nothing to stop the cardinals from making a careless or deliberately bad choice of a new pope.
And indeed, although in the past century we as a church have been “spoiled” with a number of saintly popes, the church’s 2000-year history has unfortunately seen some popes who were cowardly, faltering or even notoriously immoral.
But at the same time, we also believe that God loves and continues to guide his church. Jesus himself said that he would “be with [us] always, until the end of the age,” (Mt 28:20) and that “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name — he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you” (Jn 14:26).
We also believe that God’s guidance of the church is manifested in the concept of papal infallibility, meaning that in certain very specific circumstances, when a pope is teaching on faith and morals specifically in his role as pope, God will protect him from error (see the “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” No. 892).
While papal infallibility as applied to the teaching of Catholic doctrine is different from the process of electing a pope in the first place, it still serves to underscore how God “will not leave us orphans” (Jn 14:18).
There is also some scriptural suggestion that God would have a hand in choosing bishops at least. In the book of Acts, after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the remaining 11 apostles gathered to choose a successor and replacement to Judas Iscariot, who had taken his own life after betraying Jesus. After determining two suitable candidates, the final decision was made by casting lots, with the idea that God would take advantage of that occasion of randomness and chance to put forth his own preferred candidate (Acts 1:15-26).
Even today, in our liturgy we can sometimes glean hints of the idea that God himself chooses bishops. For example, in the Good Friday passion liturgy, during the general intercessions we pray for the current Holy Father with the words: “Let us pray also for our most Holy Father Pope [Name], that our God and Lord, who chose him for the Order of Bishops…”
Yet, this sense that God calls and chooses bishops still co-exists today with a rather prosaic administrative process for determining candidates for the episcopate, involving such mundane things as recommendations and “short lists” of names. So here, too, it seems that the church expects God to make his will known, but usually through very ordinary means rather than by extraordinary divine intervention.
This dynamic interplay between God’s will in all its perfection and our fallible human capacities for discernment is one reason for the many special customs surrounding a conclave. For example, the cardinals pray explicitly to the Holy Spirit before their voting and deliberation.
The solitude and isolation of the conclave is meant to foster almost a retreat-like atmosphere, which should make it easier for cardinals to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. And in St. John Paul II’s document “Universi Dominici Gregis,” which spells out the official rules for a conclave, it is noted that: “the election will continue to take place in the Sistine Chapel, where everything is conducive to an awareness of the presence of God, in whose sight each person will one day be judged.”
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