More than 130 cardinals entered the Sistine Chapel on May 7, 2025. With the announcement “Extra omnes”—”all out”—the doors were closed and the cardinals sequestered to elect the next leader of the Catholic Church. They will vote, confer, pray and vote again until a candidate acquires the two-thirds majority needed to become pope.
No matter who the next pope is, U.S. Catholics stand ‘at a crossroads’—a sociologist explains
