Religion: How Pope John Paul I Won

The Cardinals knew what they wanted: a warm and humble man

Seated at a table in front of the Sistine Chapel altar, the Cardinal solemnly intoned the name written on each ballot. "Luciani . . . Luciani . . . Luciani . . ." Beside him sat two other Cardinal scrutatores (vote counters) who carefully plucked the ballots from a silver chalice, unfolded them and passed them to their colleague. It was the fourth and final ballot of the astonishing one-day conclave that gave the Catholic world its 263rd Pope: Albino Cardinal Luciani, 65, Patriarch of Venice.

As the counting went on, two Cardinals who had entered the conclave as favorites listened attentively. Both are highly placed in the Vatican's powerful bureaucracy, the Curia: Sergio Pignedoli, who sat just to the right of the altar, and Sebastiano Baggio, who sat just to the left. But the name that kept resounding toward the shadowy ceiling of the chapel be longed to no seasoned veteran of the Curia. It belonged to a Cardinal who had never drafted documents from the dry heart of the Vatican at all, or served overseas in the papal diplomatic service. He had, in fact, only rarely been outside Italy in his life.

The waiting world was surprised, then pleased by the new Pope, a lifelong pastor and teacher who seemed to show a rare blend of strength and humility, a fine gift for words, a reassuring balance between kindness and worldly practicality. But how had he come to be chosen? And why? Had some kind of secret combine among the Princes of the Church brought Luciani to the fore? Or a compromise that, despite formal assertions of happiness, really left nobody happy?

Often the answers to such questions have remained locked in mystery, protected by the wall of secrecy that attends the conclave, the vows of silence taken by the Cardinals as they enter and are sealed from the outside world. But after this conclave—perhaps out of sheer exuberance over the results—a number of participants proved talkative, and TIME'S Jordan Bonfante and Roland Flamini have pieced together much of the story of the proceedings in the Sistine Chapel. It is clear that Luciani came to power through no accident, but as a result of a spontaneous consensus that evolved from three agreements reached during the lengthy pre-conclave period that followed the death of Pope Paul VI on Aug. 6.

Probably half of the 111 Cardinal-electors went into the conclave still undecided. But most were fairly convinced that the Pope would, once again, have to be an Italian. Even many Asians and Africans, whose numbers are growing and whose concerns often differ from their brother Cardinals in Europe and the New World, conceded that an Italian was needed to handle the delicate role the papacy still must play in Italy's uncertain politics. Beyond that some Cardinals feared that any non-Italian might give a threatening new tilt to the Vatican.

The second consensus, resisted to the end by some members of the Curia, was that the church, whatever its farflung political and administrative problems, needed a pastoral Pope. "It is one thing to interpret the faith and another to convey it to the people in the parishes," said one ranking Curia prelate. "That is something that the bishops—whatever their theology—understand better than the Curialists at their little desks."