On April 21, 2025, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, more commonly known as Pope Francis, died at the age of 88 at Domus Sanctae Marthae in Vatican City due to heart failure.

The Vatican announced the loss of the head of the church through Vatican Media at 9:45 a.m. the same day, causing a ripple of grief to flow through the city and the rest of the world.

In 2013 at the age of 76, Francis, the first Jesuit pope, was elected to fill the holy seat. Born in Buenos Aires, he was the first non-European pope since Pope Gregory III, and Francis made history by becoming the first Latin American pope to rule.

Francis was widely considered to be very progressive, constantly advocating for LGBTQIA+ rights, climate change, immigration rights, and social justice. Many regarded him as highly influential and one of the best popes in the recent past.

While the majority of the world spent Easter Monday lighting candles and praying for pope Francis, Vatican City began preparing for the process of choosing a new pope: the conclave.

The process of the conclave gained international traction in 2024, with the release of a movie by the same name. The film Conclave—about the process of choosing a new pope and balancing the difficulties of religion and politics—was nominated for eight Oscars and took home one, Best Adapted Screenplay.

Conclave takes place in Vatican City amongst the cardinals—a group of high-ranking male officials who are chosen by the Pope to serve as holy advisors and to elect the new Pope when the time arrives—where they lock themselves in the Sistine Chapel and do not emerge until a decision has been made.

There are currently no female cardinals, as the Catholic Church does not allow women to be priests, and cardinals must reach at least the status of a bishop before being considered for pope.

252 cardinals exist in the Catholic Church, though not all are able to vote for the position of the new pope. The requirement for cardinals to vote is simple, yet it slices the number of participants in half. Cardinals must be under the age of 80 years old, and at the 2025 conclave, 135 cardinals were eligible to vote. (Two eligible cardinals did not attend, bringing the electorate down to 133.)

However, all cardinals are able to be elected, regardless of age.

A conclave must start 15 to 20 days after the pope’s holy seat becomes ‘vacant,’ so the cardinals began voting on May 7, 2025. But before the cardinals begin to vote, they must go through Novendiales, the nine given days of mourning.

During this time, the Church honored the late pope’s life with daily masses and prayerful reflection, all led by different cardinals. They also held more solemn masses called Requiems, where cardinals, as well as clergies, dignitaries, and the overall faithful, came together and remembered the late pope.

Whilst mourning, the cardinals also began to carry the weight of possibility as they prepared themselves for the upcoming voting procedures.

The act of electing a new pope is relatively simple, yet it can take a long period of time to come to a consensus. In order to be elected the next pope, one cardinal would need a two-thirds majority vote.

On the first day of the conclave, the cardinals are able to take one vote in the afternoon, and on subsequent days vote twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon.

This cycle repeats continuously until the cardinals come to an agreement. Many speculated about the upcoming popular candidates for the new pope, as many cardinals joined the conclave with a contender in mind.

The three most popular candidates were liberal Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, commonly referred to as “Asian Francis;” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a traditional but not overly conservative Italian cardinal who was Pope Francis’ secretary of state; and Peter Turkson, a Ghanaian cardinal who is vocal on issues of climate change and poverty but condemns more liberal issues such as homosexuality.

While the public may have believed they knew or had an inkling of who might fill the Holy seat, the decision sat between the secretive 133 cardinals in Vatican City.

Nevertheless, the Conclave this year was one of the shortest in history, coming in at just one day and some change—half a day shorter than the previous shortest recorded Conclave in 1939. (Yet, neither conclave beat the handful of hours it took to elect Pope Julius II in 1503.)

On May 8, 2025, white smoke rose from the sistine chapel chimney around 6 p.m. in Vatican city, signaling to the crowd below that a new pope had been chosen. Traditionally, 30 to 60 minutes after the white smoke is released, the pope walks out onto the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

And just a bit over an hour later, Catholics and others alike witnessed as all of the cardinals accompanied the new pope: Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV.

Prevost, a popular cardinal with centrist views—not quite liberal and not quite conservative—came as a shock to the world, as he is American, and was not predicted to be elected.

Born and raised in Chicago, it was difficult for the world to understand how a 69-year-old fan of the White Sox and avid lover of his city’s hot dogs could now be running the Catholic Church. Yet in his speech to the public, Pope Leo spoke on his wishes for unity, climate action, social justice, easing the minds of people everywhere.

While Pope Leo was not expected to fill the holy seat, he comes as a pleasant surprise and is expected to be a quality successor to Pope Francis.

To contact this writer, email Muse Newspaper at musebsa@bsfa.org.

Featured photo by Filippo Monteforte for Agence France-Presse.