Pope Leo XIV
On April 21, 2025, Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church in Vatican City, died from a stroke followed by a coma and heart failure. He was 88 years old when he died and had been the head of the Catholic Church for 12 years, from March 13, 2013 to April 21, 2025. Followers of the Catholic Church have been devastated with the loss of their religious figure. With Pope Francis’s death, there have been many questions arising such as how they choose a new pope and who the new pope would be.
What is the process of choosing a new pope? It is a question many have been wondering about following the death of Pope Francis. Freshman, Jessica LeDuc, said, “Considering they’re not allowed to have kids, I would assume they just choose through who is like most faithful, like they go up to some higher church people and are like ‘hey, can you choose one of these guys.’” While not entirely correct, LeDuc’s idea of them going on a voting system is. To choose a new pope, cardinals, who are senior clergy members of the Catholic Church, vote by a secret ballot. Each cardinal goes up to Michelangelo’s fresco of the Last Judgement, says a prayer, and places their ballot in a chalice. For a new pope to be chosen, they must have two-thirds of the votes.
Obviously, to even be considered as an option to be a pope, you have to meet certain qualifications. Senior, Justin Haefele, said, “You have to become a bishop and then you have to become whatever rank is higher than that, I think there are only 5,000 bishops so it is kind of hard to get into, and then you have to become a cardinal, and the cardinals have to have a two thirds vote in order to become the elected pope.” The roles that someone would have to have been in order to become pope are priest, bishop, cardinal, and then pope. Some of the basic requirements to become a pope are to be a baptized Catholic male and at least 35 years old. Also, for the roles before becoming a pope, you must have a rigorous education. Priest requires a college degree followed by a Master of Divinity degree and seminary training, and bishops require a doctorate in theology or canon law as well as several years as a priest.
On May 8, 2025, Robert Prevost, whose papal name is Pope Leo XIV, was chosen as the new head of the Catholic Church. Pope Leo XIV will carry on the legacy of our late Pope Francis.