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As the Cardinals entered their carefully sealed sanctum, most Vaticanologists anticipated a wide-open race but, paradoxically, a relatively brief conclave. Until the election of Pius IX in 1831, conclaves normally ran for weeks, months and, in one case, more than two years. The conclave period was often punctuated by power plays among Europe's monarchs, high intrigue within the College of Cardinals, and brawling in the streets.
This time, the chief reason for celerity was the Cardinals' fear that a prolonged struggle would betray factionalism and damage the new Pope's image. Besides that, the Cardinals, particularly those who were aged or ailing, were not anxious to prolong their quarantine in the less-than-comfortable quarters of the rambling Apostolic Palace. Genoa's Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, 72, a veteran of the two previous elections, said prophetically as the conclave was about to begin, "One does not feel very comfortable in a conclave. In a certain sense, one is buried alive. This is why I think those who believe we will have a long conclave are not well informed."
Siri was right, but even the best-informed Vaticanologists were stunned by the conclave's brevity—about 8% hours from first ballot to last. True, Pius XII was elected in a record 7% hours in 1939, but he was a rising star, renowned throughout the Catholic world as a diplomatic genius and the protege of his predecessor, Pius XI. He was not a very popular man, this remote intellectual, but no one else came close to promising the firm hand that the church needed in a world hurtling toward war.
Today the church confronts a less dramatic but no less complex situation. That is especially so in Italy, where the church is closely identified with the long-ruling Christian Democratic Party in its struggle with the Communist Party, which has been gaining ground.
Luciani has been adamant that the priests of his patriarchate must not condone Catholic votes for Communists. Said he: "Marxism is incompatible with Christianity." But neither is he known for advocating get-out-the-vote sermons in favor of the Christian Democrats. He has said that if priests disagreed with his policy on Communism, they should at least not express this in church.
His biggest policy crisis as patriarch undoubtedly came on the eve of the 1974 divorce referendum in Italy. The local Catholic students' movement, whose radical experiments in liturgy and biblical research he had tolerated, issued a pro-divorce statement. Luciani stayed up all night pondering the document and the next morning closed down the students' union and withdrew its spiritual counselor. He also warned 20 of his priests that if they persisted in participating in pro-divorce rallies, he would suspend their right to say Mass. Like other Italian bishops, he is against both abortion and women priests. In the 1960s there were reports that Bishop Luciani was open to modification of the church's rigid teaching against artificial birth control, as a consultant to the papal commission on the problem. But when Paul issued his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, Luciani announced that this relieved him of "every doubt," and he was among the first to insist that doubters assent.