How Uganda groomed first African to enter a conclave

The African continent was represented by 18 cardinals at the conclave, with the first time one of its own participated in electing a pope having come back in 1963. This followed the death of Pope John XXIII. This was the conclave that elected the then Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Giovani Montini as new pope who later became known as Pope Paul VI.

The cardinal who represented Africa at the 1963 conclave was Laurean Rugambwa, a Tanzanian. Cardinal Rugambwa was born in the Kagera region of Tanzania in 1912. He underwent major seminary studies at Katigondo Seminary in Uganda, entering in 1933.

Many prominent seminarians at one time attended Katigondo, with many becoming bishops and a few others cardinals. The likes of the first appointed bishop in sub-Saharan Africa, the late Joseph Kiwanuka, went to Katigondo in 1919 as did late Cardinal Emmanuel Nsubuga (1937), Bishop Gervasius Nkalanga (1940), Bishop Adrian Ddungu (1946), Cardinal Emmanuel Wamala (1949), Bishop Paul Kalanda (1949), and Bishop Barnabas Halem Imana (1950), among others.

Made in Uganda

Cardinal Rugambwa entered Katigondo 30 years after it was opened in 1933 with less than 10 seminarians. Out of these, only two went into record books by becoming Uganda's first Catholic priests. These were Basilio Lumu and Victor Mukasa Womeraka.

Another prominent Ugandan who attended Katigondo before Cardinal Rugambwa was Msgr Aloysius Ngobya who joined the seminary in 1915. He would later lecture there after being ordained priest. After being ordained priest in 1943 in Rome, Italy, Rugambwa studied canon law at Rome's Pontifical Urban University. He then went on to do missionary work in West Africa until 1949.

Rugambwa received episcopal consecration, becoming Tanzania's first native bishop in 1952, with Ugandan bishop Joseph Kiwanuka being among the co- consecrators. Cardinal Rugambwa, who could speak enough Luganda whenever he was invited to Uganda by his good friend Cardinal Nsubuga during the 1970s and 1980s, is forever remembered for having participated in the Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1968.

The towering man of God served as Archbishop of Dar es Salaam from 1968 to 1992. He died on December 8, 1997, aged 85. In 1963, Rugambwa was the only African cardinal around and thus participated in the papal conclave that elected Pope Paul VI. That year, 82 cardinals entered the conclave held from June 19 to 21.

Cardinal Giovani Montini, the son of Giorgio Montini, an Italian newspaper editor, emerged as the new pope after the sixth ballot was cast. As a priest, the new pope spent most of his career in the Vatican diplomatic service. This included working as a senior aide to Pope Pius XII.

Before becoming a pope, Montini spent 25 years as the Archbishop of Milan. The 1963 conclave didn't surprise anyone in Italy, and, indeed, around the world. Cardinal Montini had always been the undisputed frontrunner in the race.

Italian job

Fast forward to 1978, after the death of Pope Paul VI in August, 111 cardinals entered the conclave. Everyone expected the normal trend of voting for an Italian pope to play out. For the past 455 years, this had pretty much been the case.

In 1978, the only dispute was over who of the two Italian frontrunners could take the seat. According to the TIME magazine of October 1978, the 111 cardinals (25 Italians, 30 from the rest of Europe, 19 from Latin America, 12 from North America, 12 from Africa, nine from Asia and four from Oceania) slept in an apostolic palace at the Vatican.

Each cardinal was given a wash basin, a slop bucket, a writing table and a kneeler for prayer. In addition, everyone received a roll of toilet paper and two ball points, very small towels, one bar of soap and an ashtray.

The point was to encourage the cardinals not to lengthen the electoral process. The conclave lasted through three days and eight ballots. The leading candidates were both Italians: Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, the archbishop of Genoa who had been described as “archconservative" and Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, a more liberal archbishop of Florence.

The voting

In the first ballot, Cardinal Siri came within a handful of votes. Then, as in other ballots, support for cardinals Siri and Benelli was so equally divided that it became obvious that neither was likely to gain the necessary majority of two-thirds of the votes plus one, which meant 75 votes. On the second day of the conclave, the archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Franz König suggested Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła of Poland as a compromise candidate.

Later, some of Cardinal Siri's supporters joined some of Benelli’s and, with the support of most American cardinals, decided to go for the Polish cardinal. Therefore, it was no surprise when, during the eighth ballot, the tide swung Cardinal Wojtyla's way. He received 90 of the 111 votes, becoming the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. The last one had been Pope Adrian VI, a Dutch in 1522. 

Outside the Sistine Chapel and at St Peter's Basilica, crowds saw the white smoke curling up from the Sistine Chapel soon after 6pm on October 16 and cheered. Soon the results of the conclave were announced from the balcony of St Peter's Basilica.

To everyone's shock, the new pope was neither Cardinal Siri nor Cardinal Benelli. Some of the waiting crowd thought from the new pope's surname that he must be an African, while others mistook him to be Japanese, even though Japan didn't have a cardinal at the time.

The newly elected pope later addressed the crowd in fluent Italian, much to the excitement of the crowd, who then didn't know that he could also speak other languages like English, German, Spanish, French and Latin. This was when they forgot all about Cardinal Benelli, who had twice been a leading contender to become pope.

Choosing a name

The new head of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Robert Prevost, took on the papal name Pope Leo XIV. To predict the name an elected pope will adopt has been difficult for centuries. For instance, in August 1978, when the Archbishop of Venice, Cardinal Albino Luciani, was elected to succeed Pope Paul VII, he surprised many by becoming the first pontiff to have a double name, choosing John Paul.

The "smiling pope”, as he was popularly known because of his amiable personality, later explained that he was indebted to Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI for naming him a bishop and a cardinal, respectively. In 2005, a German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became the 265th pope after succeeding Pope John Paul II. He chose to call himself Benedict XVI, ideally explaining as a link to Benedict XV, who guided the church through the turbulent times of the First World War.

While popes in early centuries retained their birth names after their accession to the papacy, later they began to adopt new names upon their accession. This began in the sixth century and became customary in the 10th century.

Since 1555, every pope has taken a papal name. The pontifical name is given in Latin by virtue of the pope's status as bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church.

The pope is also given an Italian name by virtue of his Vatican citizenship and because of his position as primate of Italy. For instance, Pope Francis was also known as Papa Francesco in Italian.

The most frequently used papal name has been John, with 21 newly elected popes choosing it. There have been 44 papal names that have been used once.

Most frequently used papal names

John           21

Gregory       16

Benedict       15

Clement       14

Innocent       13

Leo           13

Pius           12

Stephen       9

Boniface       8

Urban           8

Alexander       7

Adrian           6

Paul           6

Celestine       6

Nicholas       5

Sixtus           5

Eugine           4

Felix           3

Julius           3

Martin           3

Sylvester       3

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