How to Improve the Process of Picking a Pope

When Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio arrived in Rome for a papal conclave in March 2013, he brought only one small suitcase — the Jesuit from Argentina was not expecting to be elected the next pope. But elected he was, in a fifth-round ballot whose results appeared to reflect the desire for an outsider to reform the papal bureaucracy. Just over 12 years later, Pope Francis’s death sets the stage for a new conclave to decide who will shape the Catholic Church’s next era.

Arcane, anachronistic and hidden behind firmly closed doors, the papal conclave seems like a process etched in stone. Yet the rules that govern it have been refined, tweaked and overhauled for centuries — and with particular vigor in the past few decades. Conclaves have provided fodder for a best-selling novel and an acclaimed movie. But is the process fit for purpose? Andrew Mackenzie, an economist and specialist in mechanism design at Rutgers University, says there’s still room for improvement.