Papal conclave, 1922

After a reign of just eight years, Pope Benedict XV died on 22 January 1922 of pneumonia. At his death there were 61 members of the College of Cardinals. However, later that same day, Enrique Almaraz y Santos, the Archbishop of Toledo, died, leaving a college of 60 cardinals to elect Pope Benedict's successor.

53 of the 60 cardinals assembled in the Sistine Chapel on 2 February. Cardinals José María Martín de Herrera y de la Iglesia, Giuseppe Prisco and Lev Skrbenský z Hříště did not attend for reasons of health, whilst the four non-European cardinals - William Henry O'Connell of Boston, Denis Dougherty of Philadelphia, Louis-Nazaire Bégin of Québec City and Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro - did not arrive in time and missed the conclave. Because all these four except Cavalcanti did aim to make the journey to Rome, Pius XI was to change the rules so that cardinals from distant locations had a better chance of participating in the conclave by extending the time between the death of a Pope and the election of his successor.

PAPAL CONCLAVE, FEBRUARY 1922

Dates	February 2-February 6, 1922
Location	Sistine Chapel, Vatican City's Apostolic Palace, Rome, Italy
Dean	Vincenzo Vannutelli (Italy)
Electors	60
Present	53
Absent	7
Ballots	14
Elected Pope	Achille Ratti (Pius XI)

Context

The previous five conclaves had produced a constant tic-tacing between conservatives and liberals, from the conservative Pope Gregory XVI in 1831 to the (initially) liberal Pope Pius IX. By the time of his death in 1878 Pius IX had become a reactionary conservative. He however was succeeded by the liberal Pope Leo XIII, who on his death was succeeded by the populist conservative Pope Pius X. In 1914 the liberal Benedict XV, a protégé of the cardinal vetoed as pope in 1903, Mariano Rampolla, was elected. The question many asked was: from which side would the new pope come this time?

Conclave - election of the Archbishop of Milan

The 1922 conclave was the most divided conclave in many years. While two of the previous three conclaves had lasted three days or less, the 1922 conclave lasted for five days. It took fourteen ballots for Achille Ratti, the Archbishop of Milan, to reach the two-thirds majority needed for election, and was subsequently installed as Pope Pius XI.

Aftermath

Ratti himself was less easy to categorise in terms of the conservative/liberal divide in ecclesiastical politics than most of his immediate predecessors. A theoretical and political pragmatist, scholars today regard him as a moderate conservative, to the right of Pope Benedict but to the left of Popes Gregory XVI, Pius IX (at the end of his reign) and Pius X. He was also strikingly different from his immediate predecessor. Whereas Benedict was very short, shy and retiring, an aristocratic diplomat in poor health, Ratti was an unusually outgoing cleric for his time, a combination of insightful scholar, meticulous librarian, resourceful diplomat and rugged mountain climber and Alpinist.

In his own era the pontificate of Pius XI was of major importance. A number of higher profile popes in the twentieth century have tended to overshadow his accomplishments: Pius X, canonised in 1954, began reform of the Mass and fought against Modernism "a synthesis of all heresies," he rightly called it; the multifaceted Pius XII (controversial only after 1964), Pius' Secretary of State, steered the Church during the Second World War; the gently humorous and universally loved John XXIII (beatified with Pius IX in 2000); the hand-wringing, theologically controversial Paul VI, whose encyclical Humanae Vitae warning of the horrors of a coming "contraceptive society" proved terribly prophetic; John Paul I, whose smile charmed the world in a pontificate lasting but 33 days - the details of his sudden death provoking speculation among conspiracy theorists; and the first Polish pope, John Paul II, who appealed to young Catholics, whose philosophical insights plumbed spiritual depths while spurring discussion throughout Christendom, and whose pontificate, the second=longest after St Peter, lasted over 26 years, made him the face of the papacy for a generation of Catholics.

In this company the many significant accomplishments of Pius XI have become unjustly overlooked. Along with his predecessor, Benedict XV, he has become one of the twentieth century's "forgotten popes".

This despite Pius' strenuous diplomatic efforts to secure Catholic freedom within the arena of European politics, which also ended the Roman Question and led to the establishment of the Vatican City State. His uncompromising encyclicals denouncing Fascism, Naziism and Communism were much resented in the contemporary dictatorships of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, but were applauded by the rest of the world. His social encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno {Forty Years After), continuing the ground-breaking social policies of Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum demanded the end of social inequalities while providing bases for fair working conditions and a just living wage for employees.

Pius XI died in 1939, on the eve of the Second World War.

See also

• Cardinal electors in Papal conclave, 1922

PAPAL CONCLAVE, 1922

Duration	5 days
Number of ballots	14
Electors	60
Absent	7
Present	53
Africa	0
Latin America	0
North America	0
Asia	0
Europe	53
Oceania	0
Mid-East	0
Italians	30
DECEASED POPE	BENEDICT XV (1914-1922)
NEW POPE	PIUS XI (1922-1939)

• Reference:Francis A. Burkle-Young, Papal Elections in the Age of Transition 1878-1922 published 2000 by Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 0-7391-0114-5