The Worst Papal Election in History Has Lessons for Everyone

By Marshall Neal

 When the Chair of St. Peter falls vacant, the world watches the Vatican with bated breath. Cardinals in red robes file into the Sistine Chapel, doors are sealed, and eyes lift to the chimney above the roof. Will the smoke be white? Or black?

Today, the papal conclave is one of the most respected electoral processes in the world—silent, sacred, and sealed from outside interference. But it wasn’t always so.

In fact, the worst papal election in history was anything but solemn.

The year was 1268. Pope Clement IV had died, and the Church was left without a leader. Cardinals gathered in the town of Viterbo, north of Rome, to elect his successor. But as weeks turned into months, and months into years, the process collapsed into a theological standoff. Rival factions—some supporting French candidates, others insisting on Italians—refused to budge. No one could secure the required majority. And unlike today, there were no rules to force a resolution.

What followed was not divine clarity. It was bureaucratic paralysis, ecclesiastical brinkmanship, and, eventually, a form of very medieval problem-solving.

The townspeople of Viterbo, exasperated by the years-long delay and tired of housing high-ranking churchmen who couldn’t agree on anything, locked the cardinals in the town hall—literally. No more wandering. No more distractions. Still, no pope.

So they escalated.

They tore the roof off the building, exposing the cardinals to the rain, wind, and sun. No protection. No privacy. Just open sky and relentless pressure. Even that didn’t do it.

So they cut the menu.

Bread and water only.

Finally, after nearly three years, the cardinals elected someone no one had considered—a man who wasn’t even present. Tebaldo Visconti, an archdeacon away on crusade in the Holy Land, was summoned back to Italy. When he arrived, he took the name Gregory X and immediately set to work preventing such a debacle from ever happening again.

Gregory X established what we now know as the conclave. The rules were strict: the cardinals would be locked away, with no communication to the outside world. They would be limited in comfort and diet until a pope was chosen. No lobbying. No campaigning. Just prayer, discernment, and silence under the gaze of the Holy Spirit.

It worked.

For over 750 years, the papal conclave has remained one of the few institutions in the world where elections are not corrupted by money, media, or ambition. It is one of the last sacred spaces where leaders are chosen in seclusion, not spectacle.

And that brings us to the lesson.

We live in an age of endless campaigning, influencer politics, and gridlocked governments. We watch leaders posture and parade, sometimes for years, without resolving the crises they were elected to address. But the story of Gregory X offers a different model—one forged in failure and redeemed through reform.

What if political leaders had to meet in secret, without cameras or consultants?

What if they had to agree, not dominate?

What if, like the cardinals of Viterbo, they were forced to stay at the table—no roof, no food—until the people had an answer?

The worst papal election in history gave the Church a gift: a system where consensus is reached not through power, but through perseverance. Not through pressure, but through prayer.

The conclave reminds us that sometimes the best solutions come only after we’ve exhausted the worst options. Sometimes, you have to tear the roof off before the heavens open.

And sometimes, bread and water are exactly what’s needed to clear the mind.

If only a few others would try it.