How are new Popes chosen?

[tek]

Rock, paper, scissors? Short straw? 2 out of 3 falls?

[BCPVP]

No-holds-barred death match.

[Chairman Wood]

I'm not exactly sure, you should look this up and I believe it is almost any encyclopedia. But all the cardinals of the world meet at the Vatican. It is a somewhat secret process but they debate and try nominate people and try to swing votes. After a long period of time, there is a vote done in a ballot box. I believe a 2/3 majority is needed. If that is not obtained they repeat the process. I know one thing, Catholic law states that any Catholic male can elected pope. Doesn't need to be a cardinal. However, that may have never occured and probably will never occur. If it has occured it would have been in the very early days before the position of Cardinal may have existed.

[JoshuaD]

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I know one thing, Catholic law states that any Catholic male can elected pope.

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I'm taking a trip to the vatican. First Atheist pope. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[Chairman Wood]

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I'm taking a trip to the vatican. First Atheist pope.

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You would still need to be Catholic, so you're disqualified. Yeah, when I read that for the first time I was like whoa, I'm so gonna be pope.

[El Barto]

Wikipedia

A lot of people don't realize that Kings and other leaders used to select the Pope. The cardinal selection system is only about 1000 years old.

[Talk2BigSteve]

I am not catholic but I would have to choose Giovanni Battista as the next pope.

Big Steve [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[benfranklin]

The Pope is chosen by the Electoral College of Cardinals. Each Cardinal gets only one vote, even though some of them have very large congregations while others are small.

For some time now, the people in the large congregations (the Blue Churches) have been trying to abolish the Electoral College of Cardinals because they think that it is unfair, and the Pope should be elected by popular vote. While there are a smaller number of Catholics who want to keep this system (the Red Churches), they have more Cardinals, and the system continues. They point out that the only Pope ever elected by popular vote, Pope Chad I, was immediately hung by the Vatican Supreme Court when the Florence Secretary of State invalidated the election results.

As a historical note, a little known plank of John Kerry's platform in 2004 was that it was not fair that only Cardinals got to vote for Pope, and that Red Sox should get to vote too. When reporters asked Teresa Heinz-you-doesn't-have-to-call-me-Kerry to comment on whether Pirates should have a vote also, she told them to shove it.

[MelchyBeau]

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As a historical note, a little known plank of John Kerry's platform in 2004 was that it was not fair that only Cardinals got to vote for Pope, and that Red Sox should get to vote too. When reporters asked Teresa Heinz-you-doesn't-have-to-call-me-Kerry to comment on whether Pirates should have a vote also, she told them to shove it.


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I'm sorry, Was this post supposed to be funny?

Melch

[gasgod]

Jesse Jackson will probably show up to mediate the selection process.


GG