Cum proxime
{{Short description|Rule concerning the election of a new pope}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2017}}
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{{canon law}}
Pope Pius XI instituted a new rule for setting the date for the start of a papal conclave to elect a new pope by promulgating the document Cum proxime on 1 March 1922, less than a month after his own election. The four non-European cardinals had not participated in the conclave that elected him in February. Three of them arrived too late and one did not attempt the journey. With Cum proxime, Pius XI extended the time between the death of a pope and the start of the conclave to increase the likelihood that cardinals from distant locations could reach Rome in time to participate.
Like other documents issued on the pope's own authority, that is, a motu proprio, it is known by the opening words of its original Latin text. Pius begins by saying that he has been considering the conclave that elected him, and his opening words "Cum proxime" mean roughly since the recent.
Background
Traveling to attend at a conclave had long posed a challenge to cardinals outside of Italy. On occasion the cardinals based in or near Rome entered a conclave hoping to elect a pope before all their colleagues joined them.{{citation needed|date=November 2017}} Wartime constraints allowed only 34 of 45 cardinals to attend the conclave of 1799-1800 in Venice. Despite dramatic improvements in transportation in the 19th century, the appointment of cardinals outside Europe presented a new challenge. In 1878 Cardinal John McCloskey arrived from New York five days after the start of the conclave, three days after it concluded.{{cite news|title=Miscellaneous Foreign Notes| url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1878/02/24/81720339.pdf |access-date=15 November 2017|work=The New York Times|date=24 February 1878}}{{efn|McCloskey sailed from New York on 9 February{{cite news|title=Departure of Cardinal M'Closkey |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1878/02/10/80675090.pdf |access-date=15 November 2017| work=The New York Times|date=10 February 1878}} and reached Rome on 23 February.}} In 1903 Cardinal
James Gibbons of Baltimore was able to attend only because the death of Pope Leo XIII was long anticipated.{{cite news|title=Conclave of Cardinals to Meet August 1|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1903/07/22/102015208.pdf |access-date=15 November 2017|work=The New York Times|date=22 July 1903}}{{efn|He left from New York on 9 July{{cite news|title=The Expected Conclave |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1903/07/10/102012395.pdf|access-date=15 November 2017|work=The New York Times|date=10 July 1903}} and arrived so early that he remained in France waiting for Leo to die.}} That same year Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran of Sydney left Australia on 9 July and was not expected to reach Rome until August 20.{{cite news| title= Sixty-Two Cardinals in Rome for Conclave|url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1903/07/30/105056510.pdf |access-date=15 November 2017|work=The New York Times|date=30 July 1903}} In 1914, when the conclave began on 31 August, Cardinals Gibbons of Baltimore and William O'Connell of Boston were not expected to arrive in Rome before 1 November {{cite book|last1=Chadwick|first1=Owen|title=A History of the Popes, 1830-1914|date=1998|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=336|isbn=978-0-19-926286-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xtbLJZOKxx8C&pg=PA336|access-date=13 November 2017}} and Cardinal Louis-Nazaire Bégin of Quebec even later.{{cite book| title = Papal Elections in the Age of Transition, 1878-1922 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=t9QxJMdp6FMC&pg=PA103 | access-date = 15 November 2017 |first= Francis A. | last = Burkle-Young | page= 103 |publisher= Lexington Books | date= 2000| isbn=9780739101148 }} In 1922, Cardinal Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti of Rio de Janeiro knew he could not reach Rome in time for the conclave and did not attempt the journey. The other three non-European cardinals–again O'Connell and Bégin as in 1914, as well as Denis Dougherty of Philadelphia–did not arrive in time to participate in the conclave. O'Connell arrived at the Vatican on 6 February "at the moment the new Pope was blessing the multitude".{{cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/02/07/98979971.pdf |title=Cardinal Ratti New Pope as Pius XI |date=7 February 1922|work=The New York Times|access-date=1 November 2017}}{{efn|One observer, unidentified by the historian who provides his view, thought O'Connell "intentionally selected slow transport" to underscore both the need for more time and the importance of the US to the church.{{cite book|title=Pius XI and America: Proceedings of the Brown University Conference | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CNQOWkFVp1EC&pg=PA28 |page=28 | first= Marisa Patrulli | last= Trythall | chapter=Pius XI and American Pragmatism | publisher= Lit Verlag | date=2010 | isbn=9783643901460 | editor1-first= Charles R. | editor1-last= Gallagher |editor2-first= David I. | editor2-last=Kertzer | editor3-first= Alberto| editor3-last= Melloni}}}} Cardinals Dougherty and Bégin never expected to arrive in time,{{cite news|title=Two Cardinals Sail| url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/01/29/107046627.pdf |access-date=1 November 2017|work=The New York Times|date=29 January 1922}} learned the outcome of the conclave while still at sea, and reached Rome on 9 February.{{cite news|title=Italians Opposed Delaying Conclave| agency=Associated Press |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/02/10/98983005.pdf|access-date=1 November 2017|work=The New York Times|date=10 February 1922}}
In 1922, the College of Cardinals debated whether to start the conclave as required after allowing ten days to elapse after the death of Benedict XV. Two-thirds of the non-Italian cardinals and some of the Italians wanted to delay the start until at least one of the Americans arrived. Cardinal János Csernoch of Hungary told the other cardinals that "America is a vital part of the Church. It will be calamitous to deny her participation in the election of the Pontiff. It will have a grave reaction among the American people; it will wound their pride and dignity." Cardinal Friedrich Gustav Piffl opposed proceeding without the Americans "for the sake of a technicality".{{efn|The 53 cardinals who entered the conclave on 2 February, the eleventh day following the death of Benedict XV as required, were 31 Italians, five French, four Spanish, three German, 3 British, 2 Polish, 2 Austrian, one Hungarian, one Belgian and one Dutch.{{cite book|last1=Aradi|first1=Zsolt|title=Pius XI: The Pope and the Man|date=1958| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lgQqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT147|access-date=13 November 2017|publisher=Hanover House| location=New York|isbn=9781787205000 }}{{page needed|date=November 2017}} Republished by Muriwai Books, 2017. Aradi counts one Italian too many and misses the Portuguese cardinal. He counts the Austrian serving as nuncio to Bavaria as Germany rather than Austrian.{{cite book|title=Papal Elections in the Age of Transition, 1878-1922| first=Francis A. |last= Burkle-Young | publisher=Lexington Books | date= 2000|isbn=9780739101148}}{{page needed|date=November 2017}}}}
''Cum proxime''
Immediately following the conclave, the dispute about delaying the conclave to await the arrival of the Americans continued. On 8 February, four French cardinals, Louis Luçon of Rheims, Louis-Ernest Dubois of Paris, Pierre Andrieu of Bordeaux, and Louis-Joseph Maurin of Lyon, asked for changes to church law to allow for an indefinite delay to ensure participation by cardinals from North and South America. And Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, who had led the Italians in opposition to a delay, expressed support for some modification of the schedule.
On 28 February Pope Pius met with Cardinal O'Connell and said: "There will be no more racing 5,000 miles in a vain endeavor to reach Rome in time for a Conclave. The United States is too important to be ignored as she has been. I shall see to it that what happened at the last Conclave shall not occur again."{{cite news|title=Pontiff Says Conclave Must Wait for U.S.|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/03/01/98992004.pdf|access-date=1 November 2017|work=The New York Times|date=1 March 1922}}
Pius XI issued new regulations in Cum proxime on 1 March 1922. He noted the experience of the conclave that elected him and that cardinals had requested modifications. In place of a fixed interval of ten days following the day the papacy becomes vacant, he set the start of the conclave at ten to fifteen days from the death of the pope and allowed the College of Cardinals, meeting in general congregation, to extend that to as long as eighteen days.{{cite web|url=https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/it/motu_proprio/documents/hf_p-xi_motu-proprio_19220301_cum-proxime.html | access-date=1 November 2017| author= Pope Pius XI | date= 1 March 1922| title=Cum proxime | language=it | publisher=Libreria Editrice Vaticana }}
Later experience
When the next papal conclave took place in 1939, the College of Cardinals waited the maximum eighteen days{{cite news| title=Conclave to Elect Pope is Postponed to March 1|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1939/02/11/94677537.pdf |access-date=14 November 2017|work=The New York Times|date=11 February 1939}} and all 62 cardinals attended, including six from the Western Hemisphere.{{cite news| title= Vatican Door Shut on 62 Cardinals as Conclave Opens to Elect Pope | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1939/03/02/91552841.pdf |access-date=14 November 2017|work=The New York Times|date=2 March 1939}} By the next conclave in 1958, the speed of travel matched the internationalization of the College. As one newspaper put it, "the Archbishop of New York can reach Rome today faster than the Archbishop of Palermo did a generation ago".{{cite news|title=As the Catholic Church Prepares to Choose a New Leader|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/10/12/91412231.pdf |access-date=6 November 2017|work =The New York Times|date=12 October 1958}} Nevertheless, in 1975 Pope Paul VI allowed the College to extend the interval to as long as twenty days.{{Cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/heirsoffisherman00pham| url-access=registration|title=Heirs of the Fisherman: Behind the Scenes of Papal Death and Succession|last=Pham|first=John-Peter|date=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199334827}}{{page needed|date=November 2017}}
See also
Notes
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References
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External links
- {{cite web|url=https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/it/motu_proprio/documents/hf_p-xi_motu-proprio_19220301_cum-proxime.html | access-date=24 November 2017| author= Pope Pius XI | date= 1 March 1922| title=Cum proxime | language=it | publisher=Libreria Editrice Vaticana }}
- {{cite web|url=https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/it/motu_proprio/documents/hf_p-xi_motu-proprio_19220301_cum-proxime.html |title=Cum proxime |date= 1 March 1922 |author=Pope Pius XI |access-date=24 November 2017 | publisher=Libreria Editrice Vaticana | language=la}}
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