2025-05-06
19 分钟Hello and welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
Following the death of Pope Francis in April,
all eyes are on the Vatican, where cardinals will be electing the next pope.
It is a centuries-old and complicated process called the Conclave.
To answer listeners' questions about it for a special edition of the Global News podcast,
Nick Miles was joined by the BBC's religion editor, Alim McBool, in Rome.
So, Alim, many thanks for joining us from Rome.
I'm going to start off with a very general question.
What is the conclave?
Well, it is an incredibly exciting event to cover if you are a religion editor.
It is the selection of a new pope.
Of course, there have been popes now for nearly 2,000 years.
It was the apostle of Jesus, Peter,
who's considered by Catholics to be the first pope, after whom...
St Peter's Basilica, St Peter's Square, is named,
and there have subsequently been elections of popes since then.
But it's over the last thousand years or so,
since 1059, that the next rung of clergy down from the pope,
the cardinals, have done the deciding as to who the next pope will be.
The reason it's called a conclave is because of an election that happened in the 1270s that was just going...