• The pope is a global icon whose influence extends beyond the Catholic Church’s 1.4 billion members.

A cloaked and timeless figure with a regal authority spanning centuries, the pope is a global icon whose appearances draw hundreds of thousands and whose influence as leader of the Catholic Church extends well beyond his flock of 1.4 billion adherents.

Even in the United States, where Americans have gradually abandoned organized religion, the magnitude of the pope’s sway commands the attention of Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Interest might ebb and flow depending on the person who fills the role, but the kingly complexion of the papacy itself continues to hold enduring intrigue.

“Particularly for Americans who are not Catholic, there’s something analogous with the interest in European royalty, a kind of timeless institution that doesn’t exist here,” said R. Andrew Chesnut, chair of Catholic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

Pope Francis, who died April 21, was unique in that he was able to ease the papacy’s rarefied air with an unassuming approachability, said Mathew Schmalz, a professor of religious studies at The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

“Pope Francis combined being a part of an ancient institution but also made it down-to-earth and more accessible,” said Schmalz, a founding editor of the Journal of Global Catholicism.

Popes have captured the spotlight by increasingly wielding their influence in world affairs. Pope John Paul II’s 1979 pilgrimage to Poland played a vital role in the collapse of Eastern European communism, and Francis emphasized social and cultural issues affecting the world’s marginalized and poorest people.

“The head of the Catholic Church is the head of an institution that claims over 1 billion baptized members and is arguably the most multicultural and multilingual institution in the world,” said John McGreevy, a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. “There’s nothing quite like it.”

With the death of the 266th pontiff, the church will soon undertake perhaps its most storied practice – the process of electing a new leader. The traditions surrounding selection of a new pope date to the 13th century, which gives the proceedings a ritualistic air recalling that of the British monarchy.

“As I tell my non-Catholic friends, Catholicism makes great TV,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a national Catholic outreach group advocating for LGBTQ+ acceptance and equity. “Especially since ‘Game of Thrones,’ there’s a fascination with medieval ways and customs. So much of the papacy and the election of the new pope is steeped in those medieval times.”

The papacy essentially is a kingship, DeBernardo said.

“Despite our 1776 revolutionary ethos, we are fascinated with monarchy,” he said. “Look at how many Generation X people watch royal weddings. It’s the same thing.”

Francis, the ‘rock star’

Francis eschewed the regal trappings of the papacy, instead beloved for his humility and accessibility, including his decision to live in Santa Marta, a Vatican guesthouse, rather than the Apostolic Palace.

Francis did more than any of his predecessors “to diminish the monarchical dimensions of the papacy,” McGreevy said. “His informal personal style, the willingness to carry his own luggage and live in Santa Marta, all reflected a caution about the idea of the pope as a prince of sorts.”

His celebrity surpassed the role’s inherent fascinations, garnering both affection and scorn for his progressive views on social and cultural concerns such as climate change, immigration and LGBTQ+ issues.

“Francis was a rock star,” Chesnut said. “His status transcended his Catholic base. So much of his agenda resonated in secular society with many folks who aren’t Catholics because they’re very pressing social-economic issues.”

Those views also made Francis a polarizing figure.

“Pope Francis was reviled in certain quarters in great measure because of his interesting approach to LGBTQ issues and other things,” said Catherine O’Donnell, a professor of history at Arizona State University who has written about religion, culture and politics in early America. As the conclave tackles the task of selecting his successor, she said, “my guess is there will be great American interest in a way that did not happen in the last election.”

Jonathan Tan, a professor of Catholic studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, agreed.

“There is clearly a palpable sense of loss of a visionary leader who made important paradigm shifts, coupled with mixed feelings of apprehension and hope about the likelihood – or lack thereof – of the next pope continuing Pope Francis’ legacy,” Tan said.

The clash places the church at a crossroads, promising even more scrutiny over who the church’s 267th pope will be.

The mysterious conclave

The new pope will be elected through perhaps the church’s most storied practice, the papal conclave, a centuries-old tradition laden with ritual, secrecy, intrigue and global ramifications. The enigmatic exercise, with its ceremonial votes scrawled on slips of paper behind the locked doors of a 15th-century sanctuary, culminates with the sight of white smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney.

Frederic Baumgartner was an eighth grader in private school when Pope Pius XII died in 1958. Soon afterward, he remembers, the nun teaching his class switched on the radio to catch the announcement that Pope John XXIII had been named his successor.

“It grabs the attention of not just Catholics but people across the world,” says Baumgartner, professor emeritus of history at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and author of “Behind Locked Doors: A History of the Papal Elections.”

The release of the 2024 Netflix thriller “Conclave,” which portrays the machinations of a fictional papal conclave, has only amplified that interest by highlighting those signature elements, Tan said.

“Those include the complete separation and sequestration of the cardinal electors during the whole process, the total sworn secrecy of the voting, the behind-the-scenes negotiations to secure the necessary two-thirds majority, as well as the traditional pomp and ritual,” Tan said. “These same factors have certainly added an aura of mystique to a secretive and tradition-filled process.”

Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology and religious studies at Pennsylvania’s Villanova University, said one intriguing aspect of the conclave is its elective process in a vastly hierarchical organization.

“It’s a paradox,” he said. “It’s a monarchy without a dynasty: It has to be by election to avoid the creation of dynasties or legacies.”

Because the process is shrouded in secrecy, there is no open campaigning or endorsing of candidates.

“These guys are locked into the Vatican and can’t leave until they make a decision,” Baumgartner said.

Fascination with the whole affair, he said, goes back centuries.

“Many Protestants were interested in papal elections in the 1600s and 1700s, in part because it was the only elective office in European society,” he said.

The secrecy of the conclave is designed to shield the vote from external pressures, Faggioli said.

“In the old days, they had to keep out the influence of the powerful families of Rome,” he said. “Emperors and kings wanted to have a voice. In the last few decades, the most important pressure has been the media. In the 20th century it was mass media; now it’s social media.”

Additionally, Faggioli said, the composition of the College of Cardinals, the church’s most senior members, has changed dramatically, expanding far beyond Italy and Europe to become much more global. Francis himself, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, was the first pontiff to originate from the Americas.

“It has become more exotic,” Faggioli said. “There are now many cardinals from Asia and North Africa who are potential popes. That makes it different than it has been for many centuries.”

The power of ritual

Tan, of Case Western Reserve, said the conclave’s shift from its Eurocentric foundations and focus is largely the handiwork of Francis himself, who appointed 108 of the 135 electors who will elect his successor. The body’s more international character, he said, “is probably the most important yet highly underappreciated understanding of Pope Francis’ legacy for the office of the papacy itself.”

Either way, the process will unfold as it has for centuries, with the world’s attention fixed on its progress, or least as much as it will allow.

“Particularly in today’s world, where there’s so much informality in everything we do, these timeworn, established rituals and ceremonial practices do capture the imagination,” said Michele Dillon, an expert on Catholicism and professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

What’s significant about such rituals, she said, is that they offer reassurance about the institution’s continuity.

“Yes, there’s been a loss, and people mourn that person’s passing, but they also look to the future of the institution. It conveys stability, and that can be reassuring at a time where there’s so much flux in people’s lives.”

This story has been updated to correct the first name of Frederic Baumgartner.