Papal election process has colorful history

With its secret voting and smoke signals, the papal election may seem archaic. But in fact, the conclave that begins Monday is the product of reforms to prevent the corruption of past centuries — including mob rule, bribery and interference by monarchs that sullied the selection of the vicar of Christ.

The papacy is sometimes called the world's oldest elective office, but on many occasions, choosing a pope has hardly been a democratic exercise.

History explains why cardinals under 80 years of age have the exclusive right to choose the leader of a billion-plus Roman Catholics, and why they vow to shun all outside influence, whether from clerics, parishioners or — most importantly — political power-brokers.

As the church grew from a small sect into a powerful force, both spiritually and temporally, the pope across 11 centuries was a monarch who ruled central Italy. Political feuding for his throne sometimes became unbearable.

Nineteen elections lasted more than a month and several dragged on for many months, even years. Other successions descended into violence.

Consider the reign of Pope Sergius III in the 10th century.

His faction seized the papal throne through armed force, and he had his imprisoned predecessor, Pope Leo V, strangled to death.

Chroniclers of the age claimed that Sergius had a son with a 15-year-old girl — who was later elected Pope John XII by the nobles who had backed Sergius. John himself became a notorious debaucher who was deposed, struck back and deposed his successor, and supposedly died while in bed with a married woman.

Then there was Alexander VI, who won the papacy just before the Protestant Reformation by bribing cardinals and promising lucrative jobs. His subsequent reign was "marked by nepotism, greed and unbridled sensuality," the Rev. Richard McBrien writes in "Lives of the Popes."

Thanks to Alexander, the cardinals who elected his successor included his illegitimate son, appointed a cardinal at age 18, and the brother of one of the pope's mistresses.

Perhaps the most bizarre succession involved the "cadaver synod" of 897.

So much did Pope Stephen VI hate his deceased predecessor, Pope Formosus, that Stephen had his minions dig up Formosus' corpse. The new pope then held a mock trial for the old one, stripped the corpse of its vestments, cut off the two fingers that bestowed papal blessings and threw the body into the Tiber.

The over-the-top display did Stephen no good. His enemies rebelled, imprisoned him and strangled him to death. Such outrageous behavior was not how it all began.

St. Peter, the first pope — though historians say he was not called by that title in his lifetime — named his successors.