The October 1978 papal conclave was triggered by the sudden death, after only thirty three days in office, of Pope John Paul I.

The Church had thought it had elected a pope in August 1978 who would reign for at least a decade. Instead it found itself having to elect another pope within six weeks.

The second conclave was divided between two particularly strong candidates for the papacy: Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, the conservative archbishop of the Archdiocese of Genoa, and the liberal Giovanni Cardinal Benelli, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Florence and a close associate of Pope John Paul I.

Supporters of Benelli were confident that he would be elected. In early ballots, Benelli came within nine votes of victory. But the scale of opposition to both men meant that neither was likely to receive the two-thirds plus one needed for election. Franz Cardinal König, the influential and widely respected Archbishop of Vienna, suggested individually to cardinals a compromise, a Polish cardinal, Karol Cardinal Wojtyła, whom he knew and was highly impressed by.

Supporters of Siri rallied behind Wojtyła, as did middle-ground Catholics. He ultimately defeated Benelli and took the name John Paul II in honour of his predecessor. John Paul II became the first non-Italian pope since the Dutchman Adrian VI held the papacy in 1522.

External links

• Politics and the Polish Pope from The New Republic, October 28, 1978. The author discusses the election of Cardinal Wojtyła, and its ramifications for communism.