Religion: Election Trends

On June 19, the members of the Sacred College of Cardinals, each to be accompanied by one aide, will assemble in the Sistine Chapel. Vatican officials will ritually inspect the chapel and adjoining apartments for unauthorized persons, and then lock the prelates in. They will not reappear until two-thirds of the cardinals have selected someone to be the next Bishop of Rome, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church and Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth.

Theoretically, any male Roman Catholic who has reached the age of reason can be elected Pope. In practice, the possibilities have always been easily narrowed down to a chosen few: not since Urban VI (1378-89) has there been a Pope who was not a cardinal; not since Adrian VI of Holland (1522-23) has the church had a non-Italian Pontiff. But this time there are more papabili than Roman handicappers can readily rate. Next week's conclave, with 79 cardinals,-will be the largest since election of the Pope became the exclusive prerogative of the cardinals in the 12th century.

Thanks to the Vatican Council, the cardinals have both a good idea of the kind of Pope that the bishops of the world would like and a sense of the mind and spirit of the candidates; 50 of the cardinals, for example, went on record by speaking out at the council's first session. Judged by the number of countries represented, this conclave will be the most international in history, but Italian hegemony remains: 29 cardinals, compared with 17 of 51 in 1958.

Aperturismo. Most observers believe that the central issue at the conclave will be aperturismo-openness toward new trends in Catholic thinking, toward ecumenical relations with other Christians, toward new political approaches to Communism and Afro-Asian nationalism. There are perhaps 32 cardinals who would qualify as "progressive." But the openness of some is on selected issues: Munich's Julius Dopfner, 49, for example, is a convinced ecumenicist and a modern-minded theologian, but was disturbed by Pope John's opening to the East.

Ranged against these progressives will be 36 conservative cardinals-including 21 of the men given red hats by John-who generally deplore the currents of change visible at the council and feel that Pope John went too far in his friendliness toward Protestants and Or thodox Christians. Many of these cardinals will be under great pressure from their younger bishops and priests to vote for a man in tune with the mood of the council. They may find such a man among 14 moderates, most of them self-effacing Curia executives who have kept their views largely to themselves.

Plotting Strategy. "He who enters the conclave a Pope," runs a familiar Roman saying, "leaves it a cardinal." Despite this warning, Vaticanologists have already begun to plot the strategy of the election. They believe that non-Italian progressives will first support one of their own, switching later to a moderate or liberal Italian. Conservative cardinals will try to elect the most attractive representative of the old order, but may settle for the most conservative of the liberals. In case of deadlock, both factions might settle for another aging, short-term Pope whose only positive commitment would be to carry on the council.