The Holy Spirit's October Surprise

SATURDAY OCTOBER 14

     On the morning of the opening day of the second Conclave of 1978, as two of the 111 Cardinals were leaving the concelebrated Mass of the Holy Spirit, one said to the other, "We will not live to do this again."

     The other replied, "That’s what we thought the last time."

     By the time of their early evening procession into the sealed-off Conclave area, another pair of Cardinals had been tabbed by the press as "favorites" to succeed the late Pope John Paul as the 263rd successor of St. Peter: the Italians Giuseppe Cardinal Siri and Giovanni Cardinal Benelli.

     Cardinal Siri, the 72 year old Archbishop of Genoa, had been a Cardinal for more than 25 years. He had proved himself to be a traditionalist, a conservative, a rabid anti-communist in his writings, his speeches and his interviews.

     Cardinal Benelli, only 57, had worked at Pope Paul's right hand for a decade and had been sent only a year earlier from the Vatican to become Archbishop of Florence. He was short, stout, intense and respected - but perhaps not widely liked.

     By contrast, another one of the Cardinals who processed into the Sistine Chapel was a poet. Under the art and colors of Michelangelo's "Creation" overhead and with his "Last Judgment" above the main altar, the poet Cardinal would write:

"It is here

(in the Sistine)

that the Cardinals gather --

a community responsible for the legacy

of the Keys of the Kingdom...

'Tu es Petrus' as Simon son of Jonah heard,

'To you I give the keys of the kingdom.'

Con-clave - the keys...

here between the Beginning and the End,

between the Day of Creation

and the Day of Judgment."

     The balloting would begin in the morning. Election of a new Pope would require 75 votes (two-thirds plus one). At precisely 5:00 PM the Papal Master of Ceremonies formally exclaimed "Extra omnes" - "Everybody out!" - and, locked in, the Cardinals prayed together and then made their ways to their cells for the night.

SUNDAY OCTOBER 15

     The first day of balloting would become known as the "day of the Italians." The tallies, as always, were secret.  But sources ... hints ... shared remembrances ... "a word here, a word there" offer an unofficial glimpse of the day's voting.  The Italian press says, "In Rome, everything is a mystery, but nothing is a secret."

First and Second Ballots

     Cardinal Siri seems to have led on the initial ballot on Sunday morning, with perhaps as many as 35 votes. Cardinal Benelli was not far behind, with perhaps 25.

     The other ballots were scattered among several Italians (Cardinals Pigneldoli, Ursi, Felici, and Pappalardo) with a few votes each for as many as a half dozen non-Italians: Cardinal Gantin from Benin in Africa; the Dutch ecumenist Cardinal Willebrands; the monk, Cardinal Hume of England; Manila's Cardinal Sin; and the Pole, Cardinal Wojtyla.

     In the subsequent voting before noon, the number of ballots cast for Cardinal Benelli almost doubled while Cardinal Siri's votes dramatically decreased (perhaps due to a newspaper interview he gave just before the Conclave, which some read as contentious and somewhat bitter).

     No doubt the Cardinals began to wonder if it would be another quick, one-day Conclave to elect Cardinal Benelli (like the August election of Cardinal Luciani as John Paul I) or if the balloting would go on longer. Some feared that a long Conclave might be a sign of division and disunity in the Church. The Archbishop of St. Louis, Cardinal Carberry later said: "I would love to tell you everything. It would thrill you. But I can't."

The Smoke at Noon

     The Sunday crowds packed the Piazza di San Pietro, gazing up at the smokestack atop the roof of the Sistine Chapel.  Against the clear October Roman sky, the first smoke looked white ...

     Then gray ... and then, finally, as expected so early in the Conclave -- black. 

Third and Fourth Ballots

     Late on Sunday afternoon, the number of votes for Cardinal Benelli is said to have increased to near 60, but well short of the 75 needed for election. Cardinal Siri's votes were probably less than 10.  But a bloc of at least 40 Cardinals - of various nationalities, viewpoints and backgrounds - chose neither of the two Italians.

     Several German and American Cardinals reportedly put forward the candidacy of the Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who received a small but not insignificant 10 votes.  He is said to have looked up from the Marxist journal he was reading, with a surprised frown.  (Just the day before, as the Cardinals were processing from St. Peter's Square into the Conclave, Wojtyla had quietly told an Italian press photographer not to waste his time or his film on him. "I will not be the new Pope.")

     The fourth and last ballot of the day was also, it turned out, the last chance for the election of an Italian Pope. Cardinal Benelli had nearly 65 votes; but the votes for Cardinal Wojtyla jumped to 25.

     It is likely that at that point a number of Italians proposed the aged Cardinal Giovanni Colombo of Milan; but he quickly announced that - even if elected - he would not accept.

The Smoke on Sunday Evening

     Once again, at around 6:00 PM, the junior Cardinal burned the paper ballots in the Sistine stove, along with wet straw.

     The crowd in the piazza saw the billows - this time, definitely black.

     They did not know that, in inside the Conclave, the Cardinals began to grasp that tomorrow would be the day of "the foreigner" - as John Paul I had predicted.

MONDAY OCTOBER 16

     Of the voting Cardinals, 55 were European - but 56 were from outside Europe, from North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania - the first time in Church history that a majority of the electors were not Europeans. Only 28 were Italians; perhaps those demographics, and the work of the Holy Spirit, led to Monday's stunning "October surprise".

Fifth and Sixth Ballots

     It is feasible that Monday morning's initial voting showed that Cardinal Benelli peaked at 70 votes, at least 5 short of the two-thirds plus one - and that in all likelihood there were not another 5 votes to be found in his favor.

     The morning's unexpected indication was that - overnight - Cardinal Wojtyla's total surged to 40 votes. Without his knowing it, early supporters of the Polish Cardinal had worked through the night on his behalf - not in a merely "political" way, but pointing out to the other Cardinals that the Spirit himself was pointing to the spiritual, robust young Cardinal from Krakow.

     Before lunch, on the sixth ballot, the tide turned definitively.  Cardinal Benelli's total dropped, a sign that his candidacy had all but ended.  The number of votes for Cardinal Wojtyla increased to over 50.

     The afternoon would see an election.

     It is said that at lunch in the Conclave dining room, there was cautious optimism among the Cardinals - smiles and handshakes. The senior Polish Cardinal, Stefan Wyszynski of Warsaw, hinted that "tonight there will be great joy in Poland - but none in Wojtyla."

The Smoke at Monday Noon

     The midday crowds in St. Peter's Square knew there was no new Pope when they once again saw black smoke coming from the Sistine Chapel.  What they did not know was that the Cardinal electors were about to do something not only unexpected - but something that had been unthinkable for the last four centuries.

The Seventh Ballot

     In mid-afternoon, the Cardinals once again made their way into the Sistine to cast another round of ballots.

     In all likelihood, Cardinal Wojtyla received nearly 70 votes. When Cardinal Benelli's number dropped to less than 30, credible reports indicate that he made a gracious gesture, urging his electors to vote in favor of Cardinal Wojtyla. (Cardinal Benelli, a year younger than the Pole, would himself be dead of heart failure in three years.)

The Eighth and Final Ballot

     Late on that Monday afternoon of October 16, 1978, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Krakow was elected Pope with well over 90 votes from the Cardinal electors. He became the first non-Italian elected to the Papacy in four and a half centuries. (In 1522, the Dutchman Adrian VI had been elected.) Cardinal Wojtyla became the first Pope ever from Eastern Europe, the first ever from Poland. Reportedly, he thought about choosing the name of the great Polish bishop and martyr "Stanislaus" - but in honor of the three Popes who preceded him, he said "I will be called John Paul II."

     The new Pope was led through the Sistine Chapel to the doors just to the left of the high altar and into the nearby sacristy (called "the room of tears") to be vested in Papal white. As they had done since the late 1700’s, the Papal tailors Gammarelli had readied three new white cassocks of various sizes.

6:44 PM in the Square

    Against the night sky, spotlights aimed at the Sistine Chapel gave the crowd clear sight of the smoke pouring from the roof-pipe. "Bianca" some shouted. "It's white!"

    While the great bells of St. Peter's pealed, people from all over the city rushed to the square to hear the name of the new Pope and witness his first appearance on the loggia. The waiting crowd quickly swelled to over 300,000.

     Klieg-lights illuminated the facade of the Basilica as the doors swung open and the Curial Cardinal Pericle Felici stepped out to proclaim in the traditional Latin:

Nuntio vobis gaudium magnum:

habemus papam!

I announce to you our great joy: 

we have a Pope!

Cardinal Felici carefully paused after he announced the first name, "Carolum" - but the cheering crowd was stunned into silence by a last name they did not recognize: "Wojtyla" (which he pronounced correctly: voy-tee'-wah.)

     One lady in the piazza asked: "Un Asiatico?" ("An Asian?")  "No," her neighbor said, "di Polonia".  "Ah" she replied, "Bologna!"  She was astounded when corrected: "No, no Bologna -- Polonia!" 

     At 7:15 PM, when he came onto the loggia, the 58 year old Pope's strong voice was magnified throughout the piazza: "Praised be Jesus Christ!" The delighted crowd, which had not heard that traditional greeting for some time, shouted back, "May He always be praised!"  Even though the new Pope spoke six languages (Polish, Latin, German, French, English and Italian), he urged the crowd: "If I make a mistake in your -- no, our Italian language -- you will correct me!"  There was good-hearted cheering.

"The cardinals have called a new bishop of Rome - from a far-away country --

far, but always near in the communion of faith in Christ our Lord ... 

So I introduce myself to you all, 

to confess our common faith, our hope, our trust

in the Mother of Christ and of the Church, 

and also to begin again on this path of history and of the Church 

with the help of God and the help of men."

SUNDAY OCTOBER 22

     At the early evening Mass of Installation for Pope John Paul II (some say he himself chose the late hour not to conflict with Italy's popular calcio - soccer - in the afternoon) the new Pope proclaimed fearlessly:

"Be not afraid.

Be not afraid to open the doors to Christ."

The television cameras caught for the whole world the image of the Successor of Peter ruggedly lifting his crozier high in the air -- waving it back and forth, not so much like a sword, but as a signal to the nations. (As Cardinal, he had visited the United States twice, in 1969 for 12 days, and in 1976 for six weeks.) 

     One Cardinal elector told the press, "We chose him, not because he was from a communist country, but because he had been a Bishop who was firm and fearless and intrepid." He was chosen, it was said, to lead the Church into the Third Millennium.

     The Cardinals had indeed elected a bishop, a philosopher, a professor, a priest who had been an actor, a writer, a factory worker, a footballer, a mountaineer, a kayaker ...

     .... they had elected, as the third Pope in just 78 days, the poet:

"Those to whom the legacy of the keys 

has been entrusted, gather here... 

so it was in August,

and then in October

of that memorable year of two Conclaves -

and so it will be again, when the need arises

after my death.

Michelangelo's vision must speak to them:

And the Lord, who sees all, will point to him!

He will point him out..."