VATICAN CITY (RNS) – For almost 2,000 years the Catholic Church has honed its rituals that follow the death of a pope, from the traditionally elaborate funeral in St. Peter’s Square to the climactic white smoke above the Sistine Chapel that announces the choice of a successor. Books, TV shows and movies (most recently the Oscar-nominated “Conclave,” have tried to co-opt the drama of this pivotal moment in the church, but they often miss the dignified beauty of how the Vatican says farewell to the outgoing pontiff and hails a new one.
When a pontiff dies, the first person to be notified is the camerlengo, who oversees the papal household and presides over the church in the period between one pope and the next, known as “sede vacante” or “empty seat” in English. The current camerlengo is the U.S. Cardinal Kevin Farrell.
But the camerlengo’s first task is to formally establish that the pope is dead: Calling out the pope’s given name three times in front of other high-ranking clerics. If the pope does not answer, he is proclaimed dead, and the Camerlengo uses a silver hammer to break the pope’s Piscatory Ring, also known as the Ring of the Fisherman that represents the pope’s temporal power. The room is then locked.
In the past, cardinals and members of the Vatican curia were known …