Papal conclave, August-September 1914

Dates	August 31–September 3, 1914
Location	Sistine Chapel Sistine Chapel Sistine Chapel is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. It is famous for its architecture and its decoration that was frescoed throughout by Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio... , Apostolic Palace Apostolic Palace The Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the Pope, which is located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Sacred Palace, the Papal Palace and the Palace of the Vatican... , Vatican City Vatican City Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
Dean	Serafino Vannutelli
Vice Dean	Francesco di Paola Cassetta Francesco di Paola Cassetta Francesco di Paola Cassetta was an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Council from 1914 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1899.-Biography:...
Camerlengo	Francesco Salesio Della Volpe Francesco Salesio Della Volpe Francesco Salesio Della Volpe was an Italian Catholic Cardinal from a noble family. He held the position of secretary of the Congregation of Indulgences and Relics and prefect of the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household. Created cardinal in pector in 1899, he was named published in concistory of...
Protodeacon	Francesco Salesio Della Volpe Francesco Salesio Della Volpe Francesco Salesio Della Volpe was an Italian Catholic Cardinal from a noble family. He held the position of secretary of the Congregation of Indulgences and Relics and prefect of the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household. Created cardinal in pector in 1899, he was named published in concistory of...
Ballots	Pope elected after 10 ballots
Elected Pope	Giacomo della Chiesa Pope Benedict XV Pope Benedict XV , born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, reigned as Pope from 3 September 1914 to 22 January 1922...   (took name Benedict XV)

The Papal conclave of 1914 was held to choose a successor to Pope Pius X

Pope Pius X

Pope Saint Pius X , born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, was the 257th Pope of the Catholic Church, serving from 1903 to 1914. He was the first pope since Pope Pius V to be canonized. Pius X rejected modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, promoting traditional devotional practices and orthodox...

, who had died in the Vatican

Vatican City

Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...

 on 20 August 1914.

Political context

With Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 facing World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, whoever was selected would face the difficulty of leading the Holy See

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

 through the war to end all wars, in which Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 were attacked by Protestant Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, which was supported by Catholic Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 while the Protestant United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

 (including Catholic Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

) and Russian Orthodox Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 sided with France. Critics wondered whether the Holy See should remain neutral

Neutral country

A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...

 or whether it should assume a position of moral leadership by casting public judgments on the behaviour of the various combatants.

The conclave brought together cardinals

Cardinal (Catholicism)

A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...

 from the combatant nations, including Károly Hornig

Károly Hornig

Károly Hornig was an Austrian-Hungarian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Veszprém from 1888 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1912.-Biography:...

 from Austria-Hungary, Louis Luçon

Louis Luçon

Louis-Henri-Joseph Luçon J.C.D. S.T.D. was a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and was former Archbishop of Reims....

 from France, Felix von Hartmann from Germany and two from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Francis Bourne

Francis Bourne

Francis Alphonsus Bourne was an English prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Westminster from 1903 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1911.-Early life:...

 (from England & Wales) and Michael Logue (from Ireland).

Veto abolished

After the lying-in-state and funeral of the popular but controversial Pope Pius X, cardinals assembled

Cardinal electors in Papal conclave, 1914

The following were the cardinal electors in the 1914 papal conclave. Arranged by region , and within each alphabetically...

 for the conclave at the end of August 1914. One major difference with earlier conclaves was that this time no secular monarch claimed a veto over whomever the cardinals could select as pope, as a result of legislation promulgated by Pius X, that established that whosoever attempted to introduce a veto in the conclave would incur automatic excommunication. For the first time in centuries the cardinals alone would make the choice.

New pope

The conclave itself assembled in the Sistine Chapel

Sistine Chapel

Sistine Chapel is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. It is famous for its architecture and its decoration that was frescoed throughout by Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio...

 on 31 August. From the beginning of the conclave, it was clear that there were only three possible winners. Domenico Serafini, a Benedictine

Benedictine

Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...

 and assessor at the Holy Office won the support of the Curia

Roman Curia

The Roman Curia is the administrative apparatus of the Holy See and the central governing body of the entire Catholic Church, together with the Pope...

 to continue Pius X's anti-modernist campaign as his chief priority. However, many other cardinals, such as Carlo Ferrari and Desiré Merciér, believed that a Pope with a different focus was needed and supported the Archbishop of Pisa Pietro Maffi

Pietro Maffi

Pietro Maffi was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Pisa from 1903 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1907.-Biography:...

, considered very liberal but tainted by being close to the House of Savoy

House of Savoy

The House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II, king of Croatia and King of Armenia...

. Giacomo della Chiesa, Archbishop of Bologna, stood intermediate between Maffi and Serafini, but in the early ballots he was equal with Maffi and seemed to be winning some support from conservative factions. Della Chiesa drew ahead by five votes after the fourth ballot, and once it became clear Maffi had no hope whatsoever of gaining two-thirds of the votes, Serafini became Della Chiesa's opponent. By 3 September 1914, on the tenth ballot, all of Maffi's supporters had switched to him and Della Chiesa had been elected pope. He took the name Pope Benedict XV

Pope Benedict XV

Pope Benedict XV , born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, reigned as Pope from 3 September 1914 to 22 January 1922...

.

Reportedly Della Chiesa had been elected by one vote. According to the rules in force at the time, the ballot papers had a numbering on the reverse side, so that, if the election was decided by only one vote, it could be checked whether or not the elected person had voted for himself, in which case the election would be void. According to that account, Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, who had been Pius X's Secretary of State, insisted that the ballots be checked to ensure that Della Chiesa had not voted for himself - he had not. When the cardinals offered their homage to the new pope, Benedict allegedly said to Merry del Val, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." To which the unabashed Merry del Val replied with the next verse of Psalm 118

Psalm 118

Psalm 118 is the 118th psalm of the Book of Psalms. Verses 8-9 are notable as the centre verses of the Protestant Bible .-Judaism:*Is one of six psalms of which Hallel is composed...

: "This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes."

Cardinal Merry del Val wasn't reappointed as Secretary of State by the new Pope, but was named Secretary of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (then the head of that Dicastery

Dicastery

Dicastery is an Italicism sometimes used in English to refer to the Departments of the Roman Curia....

, because the Popes themselves retained the office of Prefect of the Holy Office, leaving its daily administration to the secretary).

See also

• Cardinal electors in Papal conclave, 1914
  Cardinal electors in Papal conclave, 1914
  The following were the cardinal electors in the 1914 papal conclave. Arranged by region , and within each alphabetically...
  
  

PAPAL CONCLAVE, 1914

LENGTH OF CONCLAVE	4 days
NUMBER OF BALLOTS	10
ELECTORS	65
Absent	8
Present	57
Africa	0
Latin America	1
North America	1
Asia	0
Europe	55
Oceania	0
Mid-East	0
Italians	33
VETO USED?	abolished
DECEASED POPE	PIUS X (1903-1914)
NEW POPE	BENEDICT XV (1914-1922)