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He had been a protgé of Pope Pius XII; yet he was also a friend of John's, and he favored the continuation of the Ecumenical Council. Montini, in fact, had almost too many qualifications—and Vaticanologists even found themselves doublethinking reasons why he would not win after all. Yet when the cardinals marched in procession toward the Sistine Chapel last Wednesday to begin the conclave, there were whispers of "il Papa, il Papa" as Montini went by. The cardinal heard; he looked up in shock, and signaled for the bystanders to keep still.
What happened at the brief conclave of 1963* is officially so secret that anyone who tells incurs an automatic excommunication removable only by the Pope. But a secret in Rome often seems to be like a public announcement anywhere else. From the start, says one of the cardinals, "it was obvious to everyone that Montini had a very long lead." Some progressives at first apparently voted for Leo Josef Suenens of Malines-Brussels and Franziskus Konig of Vienna, as a reminder to the conclave that the Bishop of Rome need not always be an Italian; perhaps they had also meant to nudge a few archconservative votes toward Montini, as the least of the possible evils.
By the fourth ballot, late Thursday afternoon, Montini reportedly lacked only four of the 54 votes he needed for election. With the sixth ballot the next morning, the vote was nearly unanimous; the cardinals lowered the canopies above their makeshift wooden thrones until all but the one over Montini were collapsed. Approaching him, Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, dean of the college, asked in Latin: "Do you accept the election canonically raising you to the post of Supreme Pontiff?" Murmured Montini: "Accepto, in nomine Domini [I accept, in the name of the Lord]."
Symbol of Unity. As Pope, Angelo Roncalli took the name of John, partly because it reminded him of John the Baptist, the precursor of the Lord, and of the other John, the beloved disciple and evangelist. Montini's choice was equally significant. "The name is a program in itself," exclaimed one Vatican cleric. Clearly, Pope Paul intended to recall the great Apostle to the Gentiles, who, said the editor of L'Osservatore Romano, is "a symbol of ecumenical unity, venerated by Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians." It was St. Paul who internationalized the early church; it was Paul, through his dynamic letters, who gave universal scope to the teachings of the Nazareth carpenter.
Some also wondered whether Montini might not have pondered the lives of the five strange Pauline Popes who preceded him. The first Paul (757-67) was a zealous defender of theological orthodoxy who squabbled endlessly with the Byzantine Emperor on religious problems. The second (1464-71) was a carnival-loving Renaissance prince who tried to lure Russian Orthodoxy into union with Rome. The third (1534-49) was a reformer of sorts who gave his own son and nephews cardinalates, yet also convoked the great Council of Trent. The fourth (1555-59) was an unlamented inquisitor, who boasted: "Even if my own father were a heretic, I would gather the wood to burn him." The fifth (1605-21) was also a rigid doctrinaire, who fought bitterly with the anticlericals of his time.