The first conclave to elect a North American pope was also the first to choose a native English speaker since the twelfth-century Hertfordshire-born Adrian IV. It was also the first at which three of the cardinal electors were from England, all of them taking part in a conclave for the first time.

The first conclave to elect a North American pope was also the first to choose a native English speaker since the twelfth-century Hertfordshire-born Adrian IV. It was also the first at which three of the cardinal electors were from England, all of them taking part in a conclave for the first time. Two of them – the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, and the Dominican writer and preacher Timothy Radcliffe – were brushing 80, meaning that if the conclave had taken place just six months later only Arthur Roche, the 75-year-old prefect of the dicastery in charge of liturgy and the sacraments, would have been eligible to elect Pope Francis’ successor.

I asked the Yorkshire-born Cardinal Roche what were the major issues that had emerged during the 10 days of discussions prior to the conclave in the so-called general congregations, at which all the cardinals – electors and non-electors, including the fourth English cardinal, 87-year-old Michael Fitzgerald – were free to speak on whatever topic they wished. Roche, who was made a cardinal in August 2022, told me that the cardinals had been clear that they wanted to see “the continuation of the implementation of the Second Vatican Council” and “the continuation of the need to make absolutely conscious in the minds of the faithful that we’re always in a state of reform and of conversion”.

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