Pope Benedict XVI

Faithful take photos the black smoke billows from the Sistine Chapel during the conclave to elect a new Pope, at the Vatican, Thursday, May 8, 2025 (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

This conclave to choose a new pope was short -- but not the shortest ever

How long does it take to choose a pope? In this case, only two days. The Vatican doesn’t publish official data on the number of votes or tallies in past conclaves, and sources compiling their own data are not in complete agreement.
 
A Vatican employee annulls the papal seal on the pope's fisherman's ring, at the Vatican, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (Vatican Media via AP)

Cardinals wrap up pre-conclave meetings still uncertain about who should follow Pope Francis

 
A man gives the last touch to a red drape wrapped around a column of the central lodge of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, Monday, May 5, 2025, before the conclave starting on May 7, where they will elect the 267th pontiff of the Catholic Church. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Ahead of the conclave, Vatican staff vow secrecy under threat of excommunication

 
Cardinal Vincent Nichols attends an interview at the Venerable English College, in Rome, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Dinner parties, listening and lobbying. What goes on behind closed doors to elect a pope

 
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, centre, attends a mass on the third of nine days of mourning for late Pope Francis, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

How long was the longest conclave? Facts about the secret voting to elect a pope

 

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Augustinian friar friends of new pope watch him deliver his first Sunday prayer

Friends of the new pope Leo XIV from the same religious order watched him deliver his first Sunday prayer from the terrace of the Augustinian college. (AP video: Dario Artale/ Production: Maria Grazia Murru)
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Workers who will be helping behind the scene at the conclave take oath of secrecy, AP explains

Front-runners going into conclave to choose the next pope

Front-runners going into conclave to choose the next pope

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Italian tailor Raniero Mancinelli, who on his own initiative is making outfits for a possible future Pope, shows a pontiff's skull cap as he is interviewed by the Associated Press inside his shop, in Rome, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

These papal tailors aren’t expecting a traditional order for new cassocks to outfit the next pope

 
Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline attends a ceremony in Marseille, France, May 8, 2024. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP, File)

Who are the contenders to be pope? They include a street priest, a missionary and a Lutheran convert

 
Pope Francis appears on the central lodge of St. Peter's Basilica to bestow the Urbi et Orbi (Latin for to the city and the world) blessing at the end of the Easter mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sunday, April 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis’s many critics included a one-time aide and the Vatican’s ex-ambassador to the US

 
A wooden statue portraying a pregnant woman is seen in the foreground as members of Amazon Indigenous populations prepare for a Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession from St. Angelo Castle to the Vatican, Oct. 19, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

Pope Francis’ conservative critics had a unique way to oppose him: a retired pontiff

 
Argentina's cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, right, kisses the foot of Cristian Marcelo Reynoso during a Mass with youth trying to overcome drug addictions in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, March 20, 2008. (AP Photo)

Pope Francis led the church with humility and simplicity

 
Tables and chairs line the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican in preparation for the conclave, on April 16, 2005. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito, File)

What are the church’s rites for the death of a pope and the election of a new one?

 
Pope Francis speaks during a meeting with the media at the Pope VI hall, at the Vatican, Saturday, March 16, 2013. Speaking of the moment of his election and his conversation with his friend, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, in the Sistine Chapel as the votes were going his way. “When things were looking dangerous, he encouraged me. And when the votes reached two-thirds, there was the usual applause, because the pope had been elected. And he gave me a hug and a kiss and said: ‘Don't forget the poor!’ And those words came to me: the poor, the poor. Then, right away, thinking of the poor, I thought of Francis of Assisi. Then I thought of all the wars, as the votes were still being counted, till the end. Francis is also the man of peace. That is how the name came into my heart: Francis of Assisi. … How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor!” (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)

‘Who am I to judge?’ Pope Francis had an informal, lighthearted speaking style

 
Pope Francis leaves at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday May 15, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

Pope Francis, first Latin American pontiff who ministered with a charming, humble style, dies at 88

 
Pope Francis, right, hugs Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI prior to the start of a meeting with elderly faithful in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Sept. 28, 2014. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

In his own words: Pope Francis’ views on resigning changed over time

 
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re celebrates the funeral mass for late Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes in the Basilica of St. Peter at The Vatican, Monday, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

With Oscar-nominee ‘Conclave’ piquing interest, pope keeps dean of the College of Cardinals in place

 
Bishop Richard Williamson, foreground left, is escorted out of Heathrow airport by police and security officers after arriving on a flight from Argentina, in London, Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2009. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth), File)

Richard Williamson, Catholic bishop whose denial of Holocaust embarrassed Pope Benedict XVI, dies

 
FILE - Pope Francis, left, and Pope Benedict XVI, meet each other on the occasion of the elevation of five new cardinals at the Vatican, on June 28, 2017. Pope Francis has exposed the political “maneuvers” to sway votes during the past two conclaves and denied he is planning to reform the process to elect a pope in a new book-length interview published Tuesday April 2, 2024. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool photo via AP, File)

Pope exposes confidential details of past conclaves and settles scores with Pope Benedict XVI’s aide

 
FILE - Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI sits in St. Peter's Basilica as he attends the ceremony marking the start of the Holy Year, at the Vatican, Dec. 8, 2015. The Vatican next year will publish a collection of private homilies delivered by the late Pope Benedict XVI for his Sunday Masses, most of them penned during his 10-year retirement, officials said Saturday, Dec. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

Vatican to publish never-before-seen homilies by Pope Benedict XVI during his 10-year retirement

 
Pope Francis blows a candle on a cake as he celebrates his birthday with children assisted by the Santa Marta dispensary during an audience in the Paul VI Hall, at the Vatican, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023. Pope Francis turnes 87 on Dec.17. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Francis’ 87th birthday closes out a big year of efforts to reform the church, cement his legacy

 
New Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, poses for a photo at the end of the consistory where Pope Francis elevated 21 new cardinals in St. Peter's Square at The Vatican, Saturday, Sept. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca)

Clergy abuse survivors propose new ‘zero tolerance’ law following outcry over Vatican appointment

 
FILE - Pope Francis arrives for his weekly general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. Pope Francis has blasted the “backwardness” of some conservatives in the U.S. Catholic Church, saying they have replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of the church envisages doctrine developing over time. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

Pope says some ‘backward’ conservatives in US Catholic Church have replaced faith with ideology

 
FILE - Archbishop Georg Gaenswein looks at Pope Francis delivering his message during an audience at the Paul VI Hall, at the Vatican, on Feb. 4, 2017. Pope Francis has formally removed the longtime aide to Pope Benedict XVI and ordered him to return to his native Germany. It's the final chapter in a very public falling out that culminated with the Rev. Georg Gaenswein's tell-all memoir that was highly critical of Francis. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

Pope sends Benedict XVI’s former aide back to Germany in latest sign of falling out