2005 conclave

A conclave was held on 18 and 19 April 2005 to elect a new pope to succeed John Paul II, who had died on 2 April 2005. Of the 117 eligible cardinal electors, all but two attended. On the fourth ballot, the conclave elected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the dean of the College of Cardinals and prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. After accepting his election, he took the name Benedict XVI. Ratzinger was the first cardinal from the Roman Curia to become pope since Pius XII in 1939.

Papal election process

The papal election process began soon after the death of Pope John Paul II on 2 April 2005.

New voting procedures

Pope John Paul II laid out new procedures for the election of his successor in his 1996 apostolic constitution Universi Dominici gregis. It detailed the roles of the cardinals and the support personnel, the scheduling of the conclave, the text of the oaths, the penalties for violating secrecy, and many details, including the shape of the ballots ("the ballot paper must be rectangular in shape"). He denied the cardinal electors the right to choose a pope by acclamation or by assigning the election to a select group of cardinals (by compromise). He also established new voting procedures that the cardinals could follow if the balloting continued for several days, but those were not invoked in this conclave. He maintained the rule established by Paul VI that cardinals who reached the age of eighty before the day the pope died would not participate in the balloting.