The Next Pope - The Papacy & Vatican City (Part 2)

Last week, we took a look at who was Pope Francis, and the legacy he left behind. Today, we’re continuing in Part 2 of this series, and we’ll try to answer the question: How will the next pope be selected?

To answer this question, we’ll not only have to look at the election process of pontiffs, but also at the complex workings of the world’s smallest and strangest country, Vatican City.

What Is Vatican City?

With an area of only 0.44 square kilometers, Vatican City State is the world’s smallest country. It is also a landlocked country, a city-state, a micro-state, and was historically a part of Rome, Italy.

The story of how this peculiarly small state came to be is a quite interesting story that dates back a thousand years, to the early Catholic Church.

According to the Bible, in Matthew 16:18, Jesus tells Peter the Apostle: ‘You are Peter [Greek: Petros], and on this rock [Greek: petra] I will build my church.’ This is interpreted by many as Jesus appointing Peter leader of the Catholic Church, with his role as the first Bishop of Rome serving as the foundation for papal authority to this day.

On the other hand, this phrase has also been interpreted quite literally. After Peter the Apostle was crucified upside-down by Emperor Nero sometime from 64 to 67 AD, his followers secretly buried him in an ancient Roman necropolis (burial ground). Centuries later in roughly 326 AD, Emperor Constantine the Great (the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity) started the construction of the original St. Peter’s Basilica, which stood over the apostle’s supposed tomb in the necropolis.

Later during the Renaissance, the old basilica was demolished and replaced with the current-day St. Peter’s Basilica, the ‘centerpiece’ of the Vatican. Every day, countless numbers of tourists unknowingly walk over the remnants of the Roman necropolis that houses St. Peter’s tomb, as well as the former foundational structures of Constantine’s basilica.

However, although the existence of St. Peter’s Basilica dates back more than a thousand years, what we know as Vatican City State didn’t come to be until fairly recent times.

There once were a series of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct jurisdiction of the Pope, known as the Papal States, which existed from 756 to 1870. However, the Kingdom of Italy later conquered the Papal States, forcing Pope Pius IX to promptly retreat onto a hill that was surrounded by protective walls. It just so happened that this ‘hill’ was the very land that housed St. Peter’s Basilica and the foundation of the Catholic Church, and was known as the Vatican.

After the pope retreated into the Vatican, he refused to recognize the annexation of the Papal States or the existence of the Kingdom of Italy, and the pope was self-imprisoned on top of that hill for years. Not wanting to risk a religious war with the pope that could pose a threat to the legitimacy of the kingdom’s authority, Italy decided to wait. But even after multiple popes had come and gone, this ‘stalemate’ between the Church and the Kingdom of Italy continued, with many popes refusing proposed treaties throughout the years.

In 1929, the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini wanted to legitimize his regime by ending his feud with the Church. So he signed a treaty, the Lateran Treaty, with Pope Pius XI. Under this treaty, the pope would formally recognize Italy and promised to remain neutral if wars were to arise, and in turn Italy gave the Church compensation money and granted sovereignty to the Vatican with the pope having absolute power within its borders.

And that is how Vatican City State came to be, and to this day, it’s an absolute monarchy, making it one of the seven remaining absolute monarchies in the entire world. But because the pope is elected, Vatican City is the world’s only non-hereditary absolute monarchy.

So that is how Vatican City came to be. But how does it actually work?

The Workings of Vatican City

You could say that it functions exactly like any normal country would, except it doesn’t. Indeed, it does have a legislative branch that makes its own laws, it even has functional police that enforces those laws within its borders. It also has its own license plates, passports, and virtually everything you would expect a country to have. And yes, there’s a grocery store to stock up on.

Besides all that, Vatican City is fundamentally weird. What I find as the strangest consequence of the pope’s dual role as religious leader and monarch is that no one is born a Vatican citizen (the birth rate is zero). All residents of Vatican City either work for the pope directly (like as a Swiss Guard) or occupy some other Catholic-related job. However, the moment you quit your job at the Vatican, the pope would revoke your citizenship. As of 2024, the population of the Vatican was roughly a thousand, making it the least populated country in the world. That said, it does have a pretty decent average life expectancy of roughly 84.5 years, ranking high on the global expectancy chart.

Apart from the pope, who is already confusing enough, there’s an even more perplexing term that serves as the foundation for Vatican City, the Holy See.

The Holy See used to be a term that referred to the throne of the Bishop of Rome (who’s also the pope).

But in more recent times, the term ‘Holy See’ has taken a more symbolic meaning, taking on the role as a metaphor referring to the ancient Roman concept of a magistrate's sella curulis (judgment seat). It now has become a general term representing the governing authority of the Catholic Church, a global institution lead by the pope and manages day-to-day Church operations.

Although deeply intertwined with the Vatican, the Holy See and the city-state are fundamentally different entities. The Holy See predates the existence of the Vatican, and has a global reach that expands beyond the walls of the Vatican. The Holy See is recognized as a sovereign entity in international law and has diplomatic relations with more than 180 countries, while the Vatican is just the physical territory serving as the headquarters for the Holy See. Technically, Mussolini didn’t just sign the Lateran Treaty with the Pope, but also with the Holy See, as the Holy See transcends individual popes and is the permanent institution of papal authority.

If you still don’t understand the distinction between the two entities, consider this analogy: the Vatican was an island that got gained sovereignty, becoming the headquarters for the company Holy See Inc., with the law stating the CEO of the company shall also become the monarch of the island. It is clear that laws of the island should be designed to benefit the company, while the company has a global reach that should benefit the country, and that is basically the relationship between the Holy See and the Vatican.

In addition to the Holy See, there’s also the Chair of St. Peter. It just goes to show how much the Catholic Church loves its symbolism. It’s an ancient wooden throne encased in Bernini’s monumental bronze sculpture (completed in 1666) that currently stands under the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. Although never sat on by St. Peter (it was supposedly created in the 4th century, 3 centuries after the apostle’s death), it symbolizes the unbroken line of papal authority from Peter to the latest pope, serving as the divine foundation of the Holy See’s governance.

The Hierarchy of the Catholic Church & How To Become Pope

Say you want to become pope. It’s a good thing to have great ambitions, but can you actually become the leader of more than 1.3 billion faithful?

Technically, any baptized Catholic male (a ‘layman’) could become pope. Pope John XIX is considered the last layman pope, who was only ordained after his election in 1024. With this precedent and canon law, it does leave way for future layman to become popes. However, it should be noted that both John XIX and John XII (the youngest pope in history at only 18) came from the infamous Tusculani family, a dynasty that manipulated papal elections and power. For the past 1000 years, no ordinary individual has become pontiff.

Despite this, let’s say that you still want to sit on the holiest of thrones and be the Bishop of Rome. In that case, you’ll have to start the hard way, and the following is an oversimplified guide to becoming pope.

Firstly, be born into the correct 50% of the population. From the first pontiff (St. Peter) until now, every pope has been a male and it will likely remain that way.

Secondly, be baptized by a priest. This sacrament welcomes the individual into the Roman Catholic Church.

Thirdly, confirmation, which is typically received during adolescence. This further deepens the individual’s relationship with the Church and this sacrament is often performed by a bishop.

Then, you’ll have to get your education. Usually, this involves attending a Catholic university or seminary to study theology, Church doctrine, and philosophy, a process that takes roughly 4 to 8 years. During this time, spiritual development is also an important part, involving community service, prayer, etc.

After you’ve received all the education, it’s time to be ordained as a deacon, and you’ll be given specific duties such as performing baptisms. From here on, you’ll be dedicating your life to service.

The fifth step is to finally be ordained a priest by a bishop, which happens roughly 6 months after you’ve been working as a deacon. Here, you’ll be taking on more responsibilities such as leading Mass and administering sacraments like Eucharist and confession, and you’ll also get your own church.

The next step is going to be much more difficult. If you want to take the place of the person who ordained you as priest, you’ll have to go through a complicated process, which involves: being nominated by local clergy onto a list, waiting for the current bishop in your area to pass away or resign, be investigated by the Congregation of Bishops in the Vatican (who specifically review candidates for bishops), and ultimately be approved by the pontiff himself. Only then, could you finally become a bishop, and then you’ll be assigned a diocese (where you’ll be given the responsibility to control and help priests within that area, as well as ordain new priests) and get your own cathedral (the central church in that diocese).

But becoming bishop still isn’t enough; you want to become pope. In that case, you’ll have to become a cardinal. Although cardinals seem like the bosses of bishops, they are just bishops with additional responsibilities, the most important of which include electing and advising the pope. To become a cardinal, you’ll have to be personally appointed by the pontiff.

Finally, you’ve become a cardinal. Now, you’ll just have to wait until the resignation or death of the current pontiff. Assuming you’re below the age of 80, you’ll be allowed to vote in the Conclave. The Conclave is an extremely secretive election process where all eligible cardinals gather at the Vatican to vote in the Sistine Chapel, multiple times a day until a pope is elected, while being forbidden contact with the outside world. If you get a two-thirds majority of all votes in the Conclave, then you’ll be elected as the one and only Bishop of Rome, head of the Catholic Church, the Supreme Pontiff.

In summary, you’ll first have to become one of 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide, then one of 400,000 priests, one of 5,000 bishops, be elected into the exclusive club of roughly 200 cardinals, and finally become pope.

The Conclave of 2025 for the election of Pope Francis’s successor has yet to begin. When it does, all the broadcasts would be pointed at a single subject: a chimney. This is because after each ballot has been counted, they’re burnt, and the chemicals added into the flames signal whether a pope has been selected; black for no pope, and white for new pope.

Conclusion

So that concludes this article on how the Vatican came to be, how it works, and how a Conclave elects a pope. I hope you learned something new in this two-part series on the Vatican and the papacy.

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