With a papal document called a motu proprio, Benedict XVI revoked a rule change made by his predecessor. John Paul II had altered the conclave procedure in 1996, allowing a simple majority vote after several deadlocked ballots. Benedict reinstated the traditional requirement of a two-thirds supermajority for every ballot, regardless of how long the voting lasted. The change applied only to elections for the Bishop of Rome. It was a procedural tweak buried in Vatican bureaucracy.
The revision addressed a specific anxiety: the potential for a faction to stall a conclave until the majority threshold took effect, then push through a candidate with slim, partisan support. The two-thirds rule, dating back to the Third Lateran Council in 1179, was designed to force broad consensus. Benedict’s move ensured the next pope would need to command wide agreement among the cardinal electors, not merely outlast them.
This obscure governance shift had a tangible effect six years later. During the 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis, the two-thirds rule remained in force throughout. Media speculation about a deadlocked College of Cardinals intensified, but the rule mandated continued negotiation until a candidate secured 77 votes. The outcome was a pontiff seen as a compromise between reformist and traditionalist wings, a direct product of the consensus mechanism Benedict had reinstated.
The event underscores how the most ancient institutions govern themselves through granular, deliberate rules. A change affecting a ceremony behind locked doors, involving fewer than 120 voters, shaped the spiritual direction of 1.2 billion people. The history of the papacy is often told through edicts and encyclicals, but its future is sometimes decided in the fine print of its own electoral bylaws.