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Papal Election

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Papal Election (trope)
"Extra omnes!"

Pope: Who told you I was to be assassinated?
Archer: Cardinal Corelli! He—
Lana: He wouldn't, by any chance, be next in line for the papacy, would he?
Pope: Well, there would be an election.
Archer: Right, with the smudge... pot.
Pope: —but Corelli would be sure to win.

The Pope, otherwise known as the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, is one of the most well-known religious authority figures in the world, overseeing 1.4 billion Catholics spread across 24 autonomous churches. The pope serves a lifetime appointment, from his coronation, or inauguration note  — to his death — or, in rare instances, abdication. In total, there have been 267 recognized heads of the Catholic Church from St. Peter in A.D. 30 to Leo XIV upon his election on May 8th, 2025.note 

What seems to be a popular element of the papacy covered in media, however, is the method of papal election and succession, otherwise known as Conclave (from the Latin cum clave, "[locked] with a key"). After the Pope dies, the bells of St. Peter's Basilica are rung to signal the vacancy to the public. His signet ring is destroyed or defaced, the Papal Apartment is sealed, and the College of Cardinals congregate to Vatican City in Rome during the period of the Sede Vacante, or "the empty seat". Fifteen days later, to accommodate the period of mourning for the late pope,note  the Conclave begins and the Cardinals are locked in the Sistine Chapel (since 1492), where they cast individual votes for the papal successor. While the expectation is that one of the Papabile will be the likely successor to His Holiness, there have been instances of those not heavily favored that have been elected. While it is theoretically possible for any Catholic male to be elected to the papacy, it has almost exclusively been prominent bishops; the last one elected from outside the College of Cardinals was Pope Urban VI (previously the Archbishop of Bari, Italy) in 1378.

Starting sometime in the 17th century, a tradition existed of Catholic monarchs (at the time, this meant the kings of France and Spain and the emperor of Austria) claiming the right of jus exclusivae, a veto over particular candidates being elected. The monarch would inform a Cardinal in his kingdom of any candidates he considered unacceptable, and once the Conclave began that Cardinal would confer this to the rest of the Cardinals. No Pope ever officially recognized the legitimacy of this "right", but the cardinals would usually comply with such demands out of diplomatic necessity. This ended in 1904 because Pope Pius X (who was elected the previous year in part because Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria vetoed the leading candidate) explicitly forbade it from ever being done again, with anyone attempting to confer a veto being subject to automatic excommunication.note  There are 11 known times jus exclusivae was utilized to block a Cardinal from being elected, and at least one other time it was attempted, but failed due to the Cardinal arriving at the Conclave after the candidate he was supposed to veto had already been elected.

Part of the appeal of this election in the public mind is that it involves an Omniscient Council of Vagueness holding a highly secretive meeting behind closed doors. The votes are cast via a secret ballot, with each cardinal writing the name of his preferred candidate on a slip of paper. Once the votes are tallied, one of two things happens:

  • If none of the candidates for pope receive a two-thirds majority, the Great Elector or Dean of the College of Cardinals announces the votes are insufficient, the ballots are burned in a specially designed stove with a chemical compound made of potassium perchlorate, anthracene, and sulfur that turns the resulting smoke black, and another vote is held. This continues until the new pope is elected. If the voting lasts for a set length of time without a pope being elected, the field is narrowed to the two candidates who have received the most votes and the process continues.
  • If a candidate for pope receives a two-thirds majority, the Great Elector announces that a pope has been elected, and the ballots are burned with a different compound made of potassium chlorate, lactose, and pine rosin, resulting in white smoke. You can find out more information on how they make the colored smoke here. The burning of ballots is a centuries-old exercise, but the white smoke to signal a successful election only became a permanent practice in 1914.

There was an alternate electoral method known as acclamation, which was popular for electing compromise candidates and entailed the College of Cardinals verbally proclaiming their support for a papal candidate. The last Pope elected this way was Innocent XI in 1676, and it was invalidated by Pope St. John Paul II in 1996 under the apostolic constitution "Universi Dominici Gregis". Another method previously used was accessus, in which Cardinals could change their vote and accede to another candidate in order to bring them up to a two-thirds majority and avoid another round of voting. This was abolished by Pope Pius XII in 1945, as a direct consequence of him establishing a strictly secret ballot.note 

Conclaves have been depicted many times in fictional media, though the accuracy of each depiction varies depending on contemporary context and some artistic liberties taken. In some instances, Christianity Is Catholic comes into play to oversimplify. Some liberties taken include electing a Female Pope, which the Catholic Church deems an impossibility (Pope St. John Paul II wrote in 1994 Ordinatio sacerdotalis, an apostolic letter that definitively declared that the Church has no authority whatsoever to ordain women into the ministerial priesthood, effectively meaning that no woman could ever become pope). If drama comes into play during the conclave, that potentially results in scandal and/or controversy, then Corrupt Church is a possibility. If the conclave is thrown into chaos and the seat is left vacant for a significant amount of time, then it becomes a Succession Crisis. If the elected pope turns out to be evil, see Sinister Minister, or, to be more order-specific, Evil Jesuit.note  Conversely, if the elected pope turns out to be good, see Good Shepherd. If the new Pope is Irish or British, then obviously this crosses into Irish Priest and The Vicar.note 

Though the trope is meant to primarily cover papal elections for the Roman Catholic Church, fictional variations are permissible, so long as the structure is similar to the Papal Conclave. References to the papal election are also permitted, so if there are jokes about black or white smoke, choosing a new pope, etc., those are also permitted. Variations can include the immediate succession of the pope under extraordinary circumstances.

Sub-Trope of Elective Monarchy, especially if it's set during a time when the papacy actually controlled significant territory outside the Vatican.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto is about 16-year-old Cesare Borgia in the year leading up to his father's election as Pope Alexander VI. The Conclave happens at the end of the series. The story is told from the perspective of Angelo, a Fish out of Water Scholarship Student from Florence. During the course of the story, Cesare and Giovanni de'Medici, the leader of the Florentine group in their school, start out as rivals. But eventually Cesare helps Giovanni overcome his insecurities and graduate from the college — in exchange, of course, for Giovanni's vote in the Conclave, since, due to an agreement between the dying Pope Innocent VII and Giovanni's father, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Giovanni becomes a cardinal as soon as he graduates (he would later become Pope Leo X). In the manga, Cesare sends Angelo to Rome as Giovanni's assistant, and Angelo enters the Conclave with Giovanni, reporting back to Cesare, who was not in Rome at the time, in frequent letters.

    Comic Books 
  • The Chronicles of Wormwood (by the famously-anticlerical Garth Ennis): While the election itself isn't shown, the result is putting The Bogan in charge of the Catholic Church: A degenerate, booze-and-drug-fueled misogynistic Australian who unhesitatingly makes a Deal with the Devil, has sex with nuns (or possibly prostitutes dressed as nuns), swears constantly, and his irritation at the whole Pedophile Priest thing is pretty much only because it makes people less inclined to respect his authority. Two cardinals wonder why they ended up electing him, and is told:
    It was this or the nigger.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Angels & Demons: The film revolves around The Illuminati conspiracy as it relates to the papacy, with the death of the incumbent Pope and the subsequent conclave happening at the same time as a potential terrorist attack involving an antimatter bomb, as well as the abduction and systematic murders of four of the cardinalsnote  seen as favorites to succeed the Pope. As it turns out, the Camerlengo is behind the plot, killing the elder pope, forcing Conclave and using the kidnappings of the Cardinals and the antimatter bomb threat to unite the Catholic Church against science under the guise of the supposed reemergence of the Illuminati. After his plan is foiled and he's killed himself to avoid facing punishment, the one surviving kidnapped Cardinal is elected as Pope, taking the name Luke.
  • Conclave is set entirely during the few days after the death of an unnamed pope, following the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Thomas Cardinal Lawrence, as he oversees the papal election while unravelling the candidates' various Dark Secrets.
  • The Conclave is about the Conclave of 1458 that followed the death of Callixtus III, the election of Pius II, and the rise of one Rodrigo Borgia (who would become Pope in 1492). The powerful Orsini family with Cardinal Latino Orsini at its head has its sights set on the Holy See, making the affair quite cutthroat (Latino tries to have Rodrigo killed, for instance).
  • Parodied and exaggerated in EuroTrip. When Scotty and Cooper search around the Vatican for Mieké, they break off from their tour group. Cooper accidentally rings the Bells of San Marco, which signal the Pope's death, drawing everyone's attention from St. Peter's Square. Later, in the Papal apartment, their shenanigans involving a mitre that Cooper accidentally sets ablaze result in white smoke coming from the chimney, signaling a new pope. With people and news crews already converged on St. Peter's square to witness the new pope, Scotty, wearing another mitre, then sees Mieké in the crowd and tries to get her attention from the window but ends up getting tangled in a curtain. When he emerges on the balcony, he looks like he's wearing papal vestments with a staff. The crowd then celebrates the new "pope", while the real pope, watching the proceedings on TV, can only exclaim in disbelief...
    Pope: What the hell!?
  • The Shoes of the Fisherman: Shortly after making a reluctant Archbishop Kiril Lakota a cardinal, the elder pope dies suddenly, a Conclave is called, with Lakota as one of the Electors. Although Cardinal Leone and Cardinal Rinaldi are considered the Papabili, the College of Cardinals finds itself deadlocked after seven votes. During the conclave, the other Cardinals come away impressed with Lakota's humility and experience and, presenting him as a compromise candidate, decide to invoke Acclamation to name him successor, to Lakota's dismay. He accepts the papacy and takes his own name as his papal name.
  • The Two Popes is bookended by the 2005 and 2013 Conclaves that elected Benedict XVI and Francis, respectively, as it covers the relationship between the two men during the former's pontificate.
  • We Have a Pope is all about the papal election. The winning Cardinal freaks out upon being named the new Pope and flees from the Vatican.

    Literature 
  • The Accursed Kings: The death of a Pope (possibly by the dying curse of The Knights Templar) causes no end of trouble for the rest of the world, as some people are quite satisfied with the disorder it causes.
    • At this point in time, the Papacy is in France, and the conclave is held in a church by cardinals belonging to various factions, none of which agree on anything. As the conclave has been dragging out for months, Philippe V has the church walled up, with only a small amount of bland food being given out every day, and threatens to have the roof removed if they don't elect a Pope pronto. This causes no end of complaining and smuggling of fine dining into the church.
    • Cardinal Deuze (the closest thing to a Token Good Teammate among the assorted schemers, brutes, and fornicators of the assembly) hits on the idea of Playing Sick and spreading the idea of "let's elect the sick and weakly guy, he'll be gone soon enough and we can pick up where we left off". It works perfectly, with the newly-invested Pope "miraculously" recovering his strength and governing the church for another two decades afterwards.
  • Angels & Demons: Part of the main plot involves a papal conclave taking place in the wake of the Pope's death, only to be jeopardized by not only the kidnapping and systematic murders of four cardinals but also an Antimatter bomb threatening to destroy the entire Vatican City, all being supposedly orchestrated by The Illuminati. It's later revealed to be all part of the Camerlengo's Evil Plan to get himself elected as Pope so that he can push the Catholic Church against science. He's eventually exposed and kills himself during a Villainous Breakdown, after which the Dean of the College of Cardinals is elected.
  • The novelization of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood mentions the election of Alexander VI's successors Pius III and Julius II after his death.
  • The novel Blood And Beauty by Sarah Dunant opens during the Conclave that elected Rodrigo Borgia as Pope Alexander VI and continues with the story of The Borgias during his reign, their time of glory in Rome.
  • Conclave is set entirely during the few days after the death of an unnamed pope, following the Dean of the College of Cardinals Jacopo Lomeli as he oversees the papal election while unravelling the candidates' various Dark Secrets.
  • The Elenium: At the start of the trilogy, the Pope Equivalent, Archprelate Cluvonus, is in his nineties and in obviously failing health. One of the antagonists, Annias, sees himself as a candidate for the Archprelate's throne and wants to buy his way there. The first two books center around the heroes seeking a way to cut off his supply of bribe money. The first half of the third book, "The Sapphire Rose" moves the plot to the Holy City where all the Patriarchs (the story's equivalent of Cardinals) are marking time until Cluvonus finally dies and they hold the Conclave. When Sparhawk and his friends get involved, the intrigue is first focused on them keeping Annias from achieving the necessary 60% majority, either by bribes or by eliminating those who might vote against him (the election threshold is 60% of those present and voting, not 60% total, so ensuring a rival's backer misses the Conclave is almost as useful as getting them to change their vote). Then the Archprelate dies, and the fight over the election of a new Archprelate truly starts, until the Holy City comes under siege by an army of mercenaries and religious heretics. After the siege is ended and Annias exposed as being behind the siege, Dolmant, a friend of Sparhawk's, is elected Archprelate by acclamation.
  • The fourth book of the Hyperion Cantos starts with the Pope dying in his sleep. A few chapters later, it describes the Conclave. The catch is that, due to Resurrective Immortality, it keeps re-electing the same Pope for nearly three centuries. The past elections have all been by Acclamation. These ones, due to plotting by The Dragon, are not unanimous, but the ballot counting still goes in the former Pope's favor.
  • The Neanderthal Parallax: Pope John Paul II dies in the series (before the actual man did), with him succeeded by a fictional cardinal who then takes the name Mark II. Many are disappointed that he's a traditionalist, as they hoped for reform in the Church, and joke that his name is fitting as he's just an extension of the last pope's policies.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire: The head of the Faith of the Seven, the High Septon, is elected in a manner similar to a papal conclave, where a group of high-ranking septons known as the Most Devout vote to select someone (typically one of their own). There have been some notable exceptions:
    • During the Faith Militant rebellion, the staunchly anti-Targaryen firebrand High Septon died under suspicious circumstances. The Most Devout were assembled in the middle of the night and forced to select a wizened and senile septon who was far more amenable to the Targaryens.
    • Early into their reign, Jaehaerys "the Conciliator" Targaryen and his sister-wife Alysanne headed off a second conflict with the Faith by sending loyal septons and septas to promote the "Doctrine of Exceptionalism", which stated that Targaryens were the exceptions to the rule prohibiting incestuous marriage. When the old High Septon died, they arrived in Oldtown (the then-seat of the Faith) on dragonback to "persuade" House Hightower and the Most Devout to elect an Exceptionalist as his successor. Which they promptly did, electing the old, legless Septon Alfyn, who was not one of the Most Devout.
    • Baelor "the Blessed" Targaryen, a king who was also a mystic and septon, directly appointed two High Septons during his reign. Both were commoners, a stonemason whom Baelor believed was chosen by the Seven and a boy whom he claimed could perform miracles.
    • In A Clash of Kings, Tyrion bribes members of the Most Devout to elect a loyalist to the Lannisters in general and himself in particular as the new High Septon.
    • After Cersei has Tyrion's High Septon murdered, the Most Devout's election is interrupted by the members of a zealous mendicant order known as the Sparrows. They burst into the Great Sept, bring in their leader the High Sparrow, and intimidate the Most Devout into electing him as the new High Septon.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Borgia follows the titular papal family from Alexander's election through his son Cesare's supposed death.
  • As you might expect, the first episode of The Borgias revolves around the election of Rodrigo Borgia as Pope Alexander VI. It largely sets the tone for the rest of the series, showing the soon-to-be pope outmaneuvering his better-positioned rivals, setting up an intense animosity between Borgia and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere that would last the entire series, and showcasing the enormous amount of backstabbing and skullduggery behind the scenes.
  • Mr. Show: In the 2015 revival, a sketch involves a group of buddies playing poker talking about their New Years resolutions. One, Jonah Abramowitz comments that he intends to run for public office. When pressed on it by one of his friends, he clarifies that he intends to run for Pope of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Although the friend comments that he is Jewish, he responds with three counterpoints: "1. So was Jesus, 2. Who cares? 3. Ride this!", the third of which includes a Flipping the Bird. It turns out that Jonah was elected freelance Pope, and was beloved for doing most of his work from home.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000: A minor Running Gag is that, whenever black smoke is seen in a movie, someone will quip: "The new Pope has not been chosen."
  • Pope John Paul II: The second part of this miniseries features the election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II after the premature death of John Paul I.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Bajoran religion is a frank Fantasy Counterpart Religion of the Catholic Church. Its leader, the Kai, is elected by and from among the Vedek Assembly. During the election to replace Kai Opaka, the ambitious Vedek Winn deploys a hardball political maneuver that would have been right at home during the Renaissance: she smears her saintly rival Vedek Bareil as a Cardassian collaborator. It works.
  • The Young Pope and The New Pope:
    • The first episode of The Young Pope begins with the conclusion of the Papal conclave, where the arch-conservative Lenny Belardo, Archbishop of New York, is surprisingly elected as Pope and takes the name Pius XIII.
    • The New Pope starts with Pius XIII having been in a coma for months, from which he isn't expected to wake; Cardinal Secretary of State Voiello takes the unprecedented action of convening a conclave without the prior Pope's death or abdication. The mild-mannered Cardinal Vigiletti is elected, where he takes the name Francis II.
    • After Francis II's short pontificate and suspicious death, a new conclave is held. Sir John Brannox, a reclusive and eccentric English Cardinal, is elected and takes the name John Paul III.
    • In the finale, following John Paul III's resignation and Pius XIII's death, yet another conclave happens, and Cardinal Voiello is finally able to get himself elected Pope.

    Tabletop Games 
  • BattleTech has had to deal with the esoteric circumstances and fallout of papal elections (or lack thereof) multiple times, which is not so strange when you consider the setting's Feudal Future.
    • Pope Clement XXVII's death in 2770 was notable in that it did not immediately lead to a conclave and an election. The reason was that the Pope and all the Cardinals had been murdered by the despotic usurper Stefan Amaris and his sadistic minions, the Greenhaven Gestapo. The leader of the Gestapo personally shot the Pope and then told his men to 'have fun,' resulting in a massacre in Vatican City. Only the timely escape of several bishops and cardinals allowed the Catholic Church to survive intact. The resulting election was put on hold for ten years and was treated as part of Terra's healing process (before the Star League fell for good, at any rate).
    • The New Avalon Catholic Church (the result of an accidental schism caused by the murder of Clement XXVII) underwent a similar crisis when Beneficent XVII and his Cardinals were murdered by the invading Draconis Combine in a gesture so cruel, petty, and contradictory it borders on the obscene (punishment for 'practicing an illegal religion' when the Combine has refused to crack down on religion within its borders for years). Unlike the Catholic Church of 2770, this backfires spectacularly for the Combine as the public murder of the Pope caused the surviving bishops to forego the usual grand and expansive electoral process. Instead, they hurriedly appointed the Knights Defensor Grandmaster Leonard Goodnight as Pope Leo XXI. Goodnight proved he was not a passive leader; His Holiness of New Avalon is Assault Battlemech certified and has his own Clan 'Mech to boot. It's not just for his protection either, as he constantly sallies out to personally crush DCMS units and rescue civilian settlements, producing one of the fandom's most popular characters, the BattlePope.
    • Between the secrecy, the religious trappings, and the extreme amount of politics in play, it's hard to not see bits of the medieval Catholic Church in ComStar, the setting's Subspace Ansible monopoly. The leader of ComStar has a unique title, the Primus, and body of the cardinals is paralleled (on a smaller scale) by the First Circuit, representing the Precentors speaking for their respective Great House territory. They even mirror the election process: the voting process for a new Primus is a complete secret to the wider Inner Sphere, the voting process requires an unimpeachable majority, and no one but the First Circuit is eligible to cast votes or be named to the role of Primus. The difference is how the rest of the Inner Sphere treats the role of Primus: there is no actual religious standing in the title, but seeing as how the Primus is effectively CEO of the single biggest and most important communications monopoly in the Inner Sphere, and an organization notorious for meddling deeply in Inner Sphere politics besides, there is a lot of speculation about the nature of the incoming Primus that takes the chair.

    Theatre 

    Video Games 
  • Assassin's Creed:
    • Assassin's Creed II mentions the election of Rodrigo Borgia (the Big Bad) in 1492 and that he pulled it off with several bribes and power plays. It happens during one of the Time Skips while Ezio Auditore is in Venice.
    • Late in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, this gets brought up again with Rodrigo's son Cesare (the Big Bad of this game) making a play for the papacy after his father's death, only to find that the Cardinals he is trying to politic with have already decided to back Guillermo della Rovere (the future Pope Julius II). The game actually skips over an entire papacy in doing so, as Julius II was not the successor of Alexander VI, though admittedly the man who held the office between the two, Francesco Todeschini (Pius III), was pretty much a nonentity as a pope due to dying after less than a month in office.
  • Crusader Kings II: The game uses a simplified mechanic for papal election wherein the next pope is whichever cardinal has the highest election score at the time of the previous pope's death, the "preferatus". The score is affected by a variety of factors including the cardinal's Skill Scores and Perks, dynasty prestige, age, Piety, culture,note  and how much money secular rulers have donated to their election fund.
  • Dragon Age: The election of the new Divine is called the Grand Consensus. After Divine Justinia V dies in the opening of Dragon Age: Inquisition, the Grand Clerics withdraw for the Grand Consensus, but with all of Justinia's obvious successors dying in the same incident that killed Justinia herself, the Consensus stretches for the entire game until, out of desperation, the Grand Clerics suggest a member of the Inquisition. Through Algorithmic Story Branching, the player ends up determining whether Leliana, Cassandra Pentaghast, or Vivienne is elected as Divine Victoria.
  • Knights of Honor: Upon the Pope's death, his successor is selected randomly from all available clerics from all Catholic countries. Having a higher skill as a cleric helps, as well as having a good relationship with the Papal States.
  • Medieval II: Total War: The game features a simplified method of Papal Election as a mechanism. Upon the Pope's death, the three cardinals with the highest Piety score will be deemed Preferati, then all the existing cardinals (for which there is a fixed maximum) will vote on which one becomes the next Pope. If the player has a cardinal in their domain (or preferably more than one), then they will be allowed to take part in the election steering their Cardinal towards which Preferati to vote for, they can likewise engage in negotiations in an attempt to persuade other factions to have their cardinals vote for their choice. The Preferati who gets the most votes becomes the new pope (in the rare event of a tie, the Cardinal with the highest Piety becomes Pope), with those who voted for him gaining Papal favour and those who voted against him losing it. The best case scenario is if the player's own cardinal becomes Pope, as that will almost certainly guarantee the highest Papal favour and ensure he rules in your favour on any disputes with other factions, thus it's encouraged for the player to attempt to gain as many cardinals as possible.
  • Suzerain: The Nurist Republic of Derdia is implied to have something between this and an Elective Monarchy. The current Supreme Wiseman, Jorga Azmal, was apparently "unanimously voted in" to replace the previous Supreme Wiseman Rasma Atafor after his death, as explained in Azmal's codex entry. Given that Nurity is the universe's obvious analogue for Christianity, the evocation of the Papal rituals seems likely in this instance.

    Web Videos 
  • "The Pope Draft", a comedy sketch by Chris Barnes, presents the papal election as the "Pope Draft" which is styled like the NFL draft. The characters in the video discuss each member of the Papabile which somehow inexplicably includes quarterback Shedeur Sanders as a candidate, making reference to his poor predraft preparation. In the end, the College of Cardinals selects Sanders to be the pope, to everyone's shock.
  • Tom Grossi Comedy: Because the timing of Pope Francis's death and Sede Vacante overlapped with the 2025 NFL Draft, not to mention the fact that there is an NFL team named the Cardinals, Tom Grossi took every opportunity to lampshade this in his "Every NFL Fan" videos. A particularly notable one that happened during the "Every NFL Fan During the 2025 NFL Draft" video came courtesy of his Arizona Cardinals fan character:
    Cardinals: I just hope by the end of the week, if people are upset with the Cardinals, it's because they picked the wrong Pope and not the wrong draft pick.

    Western Animation 
  • Archer: Discussed in "The Papal Chase". Archer, Lana, Pam, and Woodhouse are sent to Rome to prevent an assassination attempt on the Pope by a radical faction of the Swiss Guard, attempting to use Woodhouse as a lookalike decoy. During the car chase and shootout with the assassins, His Holiness asks them who informed them of the attempt. Deducing that the attempt was a false flag, Archer tells him that it was Cardinal Corelli. Lana then asks if Corelli would be next in line for the papacy, to which His Holiness informs them that there would be an election and that Corelli, as Papabile, would be the favorite to succeed him.
  • Subverted in Inside Job (2021). The episode "Mole Hunt" has the Pope competing against J.R. and Oprah for the opportunity to join the Shadow Board; however, the Pope ends up dying in the Shadow Board's labyrinth almost immediately. While a new pope appears in "How Reagan Got Her Grove Back" during the Bohemian Grove festival, the new pope isn't fully acknowledged until "We Found Love in a Popeless Place" when Rand assigns Reagan to brainwash him as payback for reneging on a deal to build a fake Hell to attract more people to return to the Roman Catholic Church.
  • Rick and Morty:
    • Discussed in "Morty's Mind Blowers". When Rick provides Morty with a headset to converse with animals, he inadvertently overhears squirrels plotting to control the world, with one of their agenda items being "[getting] a quorum to pick a new pope, in case the Exxon-Monsanto thing falls through in Africa."
    • Subverted in "Mort: Ragnarick". After Rick defeats the Pope by capturing him in a Pokéball, he is forced to compete in a Pokémon-style battle. The FBI raid the arena, and the Pope is later shown being attended to by two agents. When he asks who the pope is, one of them hands him his phone, which plays a video of the animalistic Rick clone, babbling incoherently while in papal vestments.
  • The Simpsons: In "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson", Moe decides whether Homer, Lenny, Carl or Barney will be tonight's designated driver by having them draw pickled eggs from a jar and seeing who gets the black one, saying it's how they pick a new Pope.
  • South Park: Subverted in "Fantastic Easter Special". Stan and Kyle find themselves at the center of a conspiracy involving the symbolism of Easter and the true Pope of the Roman Catholic Church which is revealed to be a rabbit named Snowball, a descendant of St. Peter, who was actually a rabbit. While Pope Benedict XVI is willing to step aside in deference to Snowball, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, seizes Benedict's mitre, calls himself "Pope Bill Donohue", and leads Stan, Snowball, Randy, and the other members of the "Hare Club for Men" to be executed while imprisoning Kyle and Jesus Christ. After Kyle kills Jesus to help him resurrect outside of the prison, Jesus kills Donohue, saving the others. The episode ends with Snowball taking his rightful place as Supreme Pontiff.

White Smoke! Habemus Papam!

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Becoming Pope

Grey explains how you get elected Pope.

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Main / PapalElection

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