Mass for the Election of a Pope (Conclave 2025)
/Mass for the Election of a Pope
Held in advance of Conclave 2025
St. Monica Church, Edmond, OK
Eph. 4:11-16; Ps. 89; Jn. 15:9-17
6 May 2025
We gather this evening to pray for the Cardinal-electors of the Sacred College of Cardinals who will soon be sequestered in the Sistine Chapel to begin the Conclave that will elect the next pope who will become, by lawful election, the Successor of St. Peter and the Bishop of Rome. Now, the Conclave begins tomorrow afternoon in Rome, but we are gathering this evening because if we waited until the regular Wednesday evening Mass in our time zone, the Conclave would have already begun since Rome is seven hours ahead of us. This way, the prayers of the People of God, the prayers of the Church coming from Edmond, Oklahoma, join the prayers of the members of the Universal Church in accompanying the Conclave from its very beginning. In other words, no moment of the Conclave will be left unaided by our prayers.
We make use of very unique Mass orations this evening, the Mass for the Election of a Pope. This is the same Mass setting that the Cardinals will pray tomorrow morning in St. Peter’s Basilica, asking the Holy Spirit to guide and guard them as they fulfill this solemn obligation of their office, namely to provide a pope for us. Upon completing this same Mass tomorrow morning in St. Peter’s, the final preparations will be made such that by tomorrow afternoon Rome time, the Cardinal-electors will enter the Sistine Chapel in a solemn procession, chanting the Litany of Saints, and making their oath before the balloting begins. And after that, we will see how long it takes for a successful election to take place. In the meantime, we pray. We pray for the Cardinals. We pray for the one chosen as pope. We pray that we will be an obedient flock who will receive our new Universal Pastor with joy, hope, and confidence.
An interregnum is a unique moment in our life. A moment when we as Catholics, but also plenty of non-catholics, find our conversations turning to the mysterious process of a Conclave. There is nothing wrong with discussing what we think the Church needs at this moment in history. There is something quite good about thinking of what the world needs from the Church, in what ways the world needs to hear the Gospel proclaimed with force in order to address the needs of our time and to frame our moment in history in the light of salvation history. Some who follow these matters more than we do, and those who know more about some of the individual cardinals, can surface qualities and skills they have that might be attractive in a papal election. What can be known about the job history of some cardinals will be, and has been, reported by the media, along with the suggestion that this one or that one might be a leading contender. The truth is: We don’t know. And we won’t know until white smoke rises from the Sistine Chapel. And once we do know, we may well look back on what we thought we knew and see how our evaluations did not quite pan out.
How do we understand this? Or how do we talk about this? I would say it this way: What media types discuss, and what you and I discuss, can only capture one aspect of the action of a Conclave. Our pre-Conclave discussions can only capture what you might call the human or the political aspects of a Conclave. None of our discussions can quite capture an immensely important aspect of a Conclave, namely that it is far from only an exercise in politics, but is also an act of faith by which the Cardinals seek to make a human decision that, before God as their judge, they believe is the right decision to make. None of our pre-Conclave discussions can quite capture that aspect of a Conclave. Nor can our discussions capture how that reality (what we might call the divine or spiritual reality of a Conclave) might influence the human factors in surprising ways, in ways that don’t match up perfectly with the political evaluations that are reflected in pre-Conclave prognostications.
This is not a time for political punditry. I’m not saying we don’t have evaluations of our present needs, or that we don’t express hope that Cardinal So-and-So might be the ideal choice to address our present needs. What I am saying is that our first and our main duty and gift is to pray, to pray fervently and to fast so that we are aiding the spiritual dimensions of a Conclave. We can be honored that many people outside of our fold are interested in what is taking place right now in the Catholic Church. To that end, I simply want to note that a friend of mine, Carla Hinton is here this evening. She is a good and a fair reporter on religious topics for the Oklahoman. She has my permission to be here and if, after Mass, she asks for your thoughts as a Catholic watching this moment in history, I think you should feel good about speaking to her. You are, of course, free to decline. I will by no means use a public forum like this to speak of any possible candidate, but I do think it is worth sharing a simple idea that might shape your prayers in this time. My simple idea is what I might hope to see in whoever is the new pope. My idea is necessarily limited in that I am only highlighting what I think is most essential. And to be clear, my idea is not at all to be understood as if somehow in contradistinction to the last pope or any prior pope. First, and I would not quite call this a job skill, but rather a disposition or quality: I pray that the man who is chosen is holy such that we see in him a serious disciple for whom relationship to Jesus Christ is the priority of his life. In that, I hope we find inspiration to follow such a disciple because he will be our chief visible shepherd on earth. Next, and this is more in the arena of job skills or abilities: I hope that doctrinal clarity in exercising such a teaching office as Successor of St. Peter is a clear factor in the new pope who is chosen, because our world faces many challenges and our world needs clear guidance. Given the speed with which our world communicates (and often miscommunicates!), we need someone who can express the Church’s witness to the truth without confusion. Next, I hope the one who walks out on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica is marked by evangelical fervor because our world will not listen to someone who is not convinced that the Gospel offers truth and hope to a world that is adrift for as long as it resists being anchored in Christ. Evangelization is the foundational mission of the Church and so we need in our next pope someone who can take up that mantle and be zealous in proclaiming the Good News. I have placed on the round table in the narthex a photocopied sheet with two prayers: one for the Conclave and one for the College of Cardinals. I invite you to take one copy and to use those prayers for as long as they are needed. We unite ourselves to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit and Mother of the Church, to St. Joseph, the Guardian of the Universal Church, to St. Michael the Archangel, to the Holy Apostles Sts. Peter and Paul, asking that the Cardinals be docile to the Holy Spirit in making a wise choice that glorifies God. And as we advance in this Holy Mass we give thanks that we are united to the Lord Jesus and strengthened by his Word in Sacred Scripture and his gift of self in the Holy Eucharist so that we may take up our part to give the witness of a holy life, doctrinal clarity in our own sharing of the faith, and the witness of evangelical fervor to the shared duty we have to proclaim Jesus Christ and his Gospel to all we meet!