Papal Conclave Lesson Plan

This is an updated lesson plan from The Religion Teacher’s Pope Activity Pack, which includes lesson plans, activity ideas, worksheets, prayers, and videos to help you teach about and pray for the pope. Get additional lesson plans and worksheets about the pope here.

Papal Conclave Lesson Objectives

• Students will be able to explain how a new pope is elected in the Catholic Church.
• Students will be able to compare and contrast the U.S. presidential election and the election of a pope.
• Students will feel confident in the Holy Spirit’s guidance of the papal conclave.  

Papal Conclave Lesson Activities & Assessment

Hook: Jobs Near Me

Using your computer or a projector screen, show a list of local online job postings (local newspaper website, Indeed, LinkedIn, etc.). Select a few of the jobs and show students what a job posting looks like. Typically, job postings will include:

1. Company Description
2. Job Description 
3. Minimum Qualifications

Ask the students to brainstorm as a class what the Catholic Church would include in these three sections if we were posting a job listing for the pope. How could we describe the Catholic Church in a few sentences? What are some of the responsibilities of the pope? What do you think the minimum qualifications are for being chosen as the pope?

Presentation: The Papal Conclave Video

Share The Religion Teacher’s “Papal Conclave” video to give students a basic overview of the papal election process:

Get a video graphic organize worksheet for students to complete while watching this video in The Religion Teacher’s Pope Activity Pack.

Practice: Papal Conclave Worksheet

In addition to the video, have students read and respond to the questions in this Papal Conclave Worksheet:

The Papal Conclave

After a pope dies or resigns, the governance of the Catholic Church passes to the College of Cardinals. These cardinals, who were chosen by previous popes, gather at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to elect a new pope. At first, they pray together and meet to discuss the current issues in the Catholic Church especially seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As the conclave begins, they meet in the Sistine Chapel to conduct a secret ballot. Cardinals under the age of 80 are eligible to vote. Four rounds of ballots are taken per day until someone receives a two-thirds majority of the vote. The ballots are burned after each round and the smoke can be seen outside. Chemicals are added to change the color of the smoke: black to indicate that the conclave continues and white to signal the election of a new pope. If someone receives a sufficient number of votes, the Dean of the College of Cardinals asks if the elected individual will accept the results. If he does, then he selects a new papal name and begins to dress in the pope’s white vestments. The senior cardinal deacon announces from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica “Habemus Papam!,” which means “We have a pope!,” and the new Holy Father emerges to greet the world.

Download the Papal Conclave Worksheet

Enter your email address and I will send you a PDF copy of the Papal Conclave handout:

Download the Conclave Worksheet

Meditation: Christ as My Witness

As the cardinals cast their votes for a new pope, they proclaim, “I call as my witness Christ the Lord who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected.”

Imagine if you made every decision today with these words, “I call as my witness Christ the Lord who will be my judge.” Think about the decisions you will make today: what to eat, what to do after school, how to help your parents at home, etc. What will you do differently knowing Christ is your witness?

Prayer: Prayer for the Election of a New Pope

As your students think about the election of a new pope today or in the future, join in praying:

O God, Lord of Lords,
Righteous Judge and Ruler of All Things,
Look with favor upon our Church
and lift up for us a pastor to lead your flock
who will feed us and guide us to your holy kingdom.
Through Christ Our Lord, who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and forever.
Amen.

(c)Jared Dees, The Religion Teacher’s Pope Activity Pack

Assessment: President vs. Pope Election

The United States Presidential Election

The United States President wins an election by getting at least 270 electoral votes, which is more than half of the possible electoral votes. Electoral votes are awarded by the Electoral College of each state for winning a majority of votes in their states. U.S. citizens vote for a candidate, but their votes contribute to the state’s total not the national total of votes by U.S. citizens. To run for president, a person must be at least 35 years old and a natural-born citizen of the United States.

Recreate the following table on the board or in a handout. Have the students fill out the information for the presidential elections based on the paragraph above, then list what they know about the election of a pope.

	U.S. Presidents	Catholic Popes
Age Requirement:
Must be born in:
Other Requirements:
Who votes for them?
Who do they turn to for guidance in their vote?
What percentage of the vote is required to win?

Get the Assessment Answer Key in The Religion Teacher’s Pope Activity Pack.

2013 Papal Conclave Lesson Plan

Here is the original version of the Papal Conclave Lesson Plan that I created in 2013 during the election of Pope Francis:

There has been lots of excitement during Lent 2013 with the historic conclave to elect a new pope to succeed retired Pope Benedict XVI. Students will be likely to watch and listen to all sorts of stories about the election and selection process for the new pontiff. Use this papal conclave lesson plan with your students to help them explore and understand the process for electing a new pope.

Papal Conclave Lesson Objectives

• SWBAT describe the conclave process.
• SWBAT compare and contrast a papal conclave to a presidential election (or student council election or another kind of election of leaders).

Papal Conclave Activities

1. Assess Prior Knowledge

Depending on the age group, your students may already know a lot about the papal conclave. When Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation in February 2013, every major news venue gave a brief tutorial on the election of a new pope. Find out what they know already using one of the following teaching strategies:

• Chalk Talk
• KWL Chart

2. Explore the Papal Conclave

There are a whole host of websites and videos on the Internet about the papal conclave. With so many resources, it is important to provide students with tools that will enable them to understand and organize everything they read, listen to, and watch. In other words, you need to give them a graphic organizer.

Have students take out a blank sheet of paper and fold it in thirds as if they were going to put it in an envelope. Then instruct them to fold the paper in half vertically (“hot dog style”) to create six boxes. Have them label the boxes Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.

During class or as a research project, they must fill in each of these boxes with answers to the questions below. If you want to add an enrichment activity, have them draw a picture of what they’ve written in each box on the back of their papers.

Write the following questions on the board to help guide the students’ research or create your own questions:

• Who: Who elects the new pope? (List three things you know about them.)
• What: What do they use to elect the new pope?
• When: When can a conclave take place?
• Where: Where does the conclave take place (city and building)?
• Why: Why does the Catholic Church have a pope?
• How: How do they determine who they will elect as the next pope?

Alternative Activity: You might also try to give students ownership over this activity by looking to them to create their own questions. Instead of providing the questions, have students brainstorm their own questions. For example, they might decided to write: Who can become Pope? Or, How do we know when the new pope is elected?

Papal Election Educational Resources

I suggest that students use some of the following resources about the papal conclave to complete their graphic organizers:

Electingthepope.net — A new website created by catechetical leaders to address questions about the conclave.

How the Pope is Elected Graphic — An incredibly informative, interactive graphic describing how the pope is elected.

How is a New Pope Chosen (USCCB) — A brief summary of the election of a new pope from the USCCB website with a free, downloadable bulletin insert.

Papal Transition Q&A (America) — The Jesuit America magazine collects a series of questions and answers about the transition to a new pope.

Election of a New Pope Resources for Schools (Archdiocese of Dublin) — Great collection of educational resources about electing a new pope from the Archdiocese of Dublin.

3. Conclave Q & A

Make sure students have a good understanding of the papal conclave. Have them form groups of three or four students. Using their graphic organizers, invite them to give each other pop quizzes.

When they finish, invite them add any new information they learned in their groups to their graphic organizers.

4. Compare Papal Elections and Presidential Elections

If you have time and interest, you may also invite students to compare and contrast what they have learned about papal elections at the conclave and U.S. presidential elections. You might also have them compare the conclave to student council elections. This is a great way to work with the social studies teacher if you are in a Catholic school.

Use the same process described above for the papal conclave in an exploration of the presidential election. Have them create a graphic organizer with boxes labeled Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. Then, have them use the Internet or a social studies textbook to complete the graphic organizer for presidential elections.

Once both graphic organizers are completed, distribute a Venn diagram. Label one circle Papal Election and the other circle Presidential Election. Have them write similarities and differences in the Venn diagram.

For example, in the middle they might write something like “both are elected by a small group of people (cardinals/electoral college).” As differences in the outside they might write that “the Holy Spirit inspires the cardinals to elect a pope, while the citizens of each state inspire the electoral college to select a president.” Or, “the pope is elected with two-thirds of the votes, while the president is elected based on a majority (more than one half) of votes.”

5. Assessment: The Papal Conclave Process

With all of the news coverage of the conclave, have students use what they have learned to write a news report of the conclave. They can either write a newspaper article or a script for a radio or TV show covering the conclave. If there is time, have the students act out the radio or TV shows.

What resources are you using to teach about the papal conclave to elect a new pope? Share it in the comments below.