By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza.

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Now for today's column...

Conclave 2025 was not, by historical standards, exceptionally short. But it was short. It was the third straight Conclave to conclude on its first full day. Is that a cause for concern?

No one really knows except those who were in the Sistine Chapel. They are sworn to secrecy. Only Pope Leo XIV is completely free to ask them about their experience, and only the Holy Father can make any necessary modifications in future Conclave practice. It's too early to be thinking about the next Conclave, but it would be advisable for Leo to take informal soundings now, while memories are still fresh, even if there is no urgency to act.

There are not many Cardinals who have broad experience of Conclaves. Only five have taken part in three Conclaves (2005, 2013 and 2025), and twenty more were part of two (2013, 2025). They are the ones who could offer some comparison of their experiences.

The strict seclusion and secrecy of the Conclave is intended to preserve the freedom of the Cardinals to act without exterior influence, to protect them from external pressure. They are not able to follow what is going on outside, and no one will ever know how an individual elector voted. That permits, for example, Cardinal Stephen Chow of Hong Kong - should he be minded to do so - to vote for a candidate that would defy the Chinese Communist Party. Or to vote for one who would capitulate. He is free to vote his conscience.

Yet the digital age may create another kind of pressure. I asked several Cardinals after the 2013 Conclave whether there was pressure to come to a quick conclusion, to produce a result for an impatient instant-communication world. Their answer was yes, that there was a sense that a "deadlocked" Conclave - even just proceeding to a third day - might signal division and disunity.

The pressure in times gone by was real; indeed, Catholic sovereigns would send a Cardinal from their territories to carry their "veto" into the conclave. The last time that was done was in 1903, when the Cardinal from Kraków exercised the veto of the Habsburg emperor. St. Pius X eliminated that almost immediately.

Potential pressure today comes not from one regime against a particular papabile. It's not really from anyone but from everyone, from a digital world unimagined when St. John Paul the Great wrote the current rules for the conclave in 1996. The pressure for a quick resolution may well impinge on the freedom of the electors.

I did not report on this Conclave, but many of those who did wrote in advance that, given the large number of Cardinals, many of whom were rather unknown to each other, the voting might take longer. To the contrary, it seems that the result was clear before pranzo on the first full day. It is possible that a new kind of external pressure is felt; to paraphrase Jesus at the Last Supper: what is to be done should be done quickly.

Again, one does not know. It may well be that today's speed of travel means that Conclaves actually "begin" much earlier, in the formal daily meetings ("general congregations") and the many informal gatherings which precede the conclave itself. It's plausible that what had previously been sorted out in the first series of ballots is now already done before the Cardinals actually begin voting. The recent 24-hour Conclaves may not actually have been conducted in undue haste.

Still, the elec...