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Cardinals Pablo Virgilio David, Luis Antonio Tagle and Jose Advincula are pictured at the Pontificio Collegio Filipino in Rome on May 4, 2025. (CBCP News/Roy Lagarde)VATICAN— The conclave that will elect the next pope is steeped in rules developed over the course of centuries. Given the biggest number of cardinal-electors in history, 133, who gets to cast the first ballot?
The answer: “By order of precedence,” as mandated by “Universi Dominici gregis,” the apostolic constitution that governs church affairs during the interregnum at the Holy See and the election of a new pope.
In the College of Cardinals, the body of churchmen tasked to elect a new pope and serve as the pontiff’s closest advisers, this precedence is primarily based upon the order or class to which the cardinals belong.
The highest is the order of cardinal-bishops, composed of the most senior officials of the Roman Curia who are also given jurisdiction over suburbicarian sees, or the most important dioceses surrounding the Diocese of Rome, whose bishop is the pope.
It is followed by the order of cardinal-priests, for archbishops and bishops of the world’s top dioceses, and cardinal-deacons, for other Vatican officials.
The college is led by the dean, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re of Italy. But Re and his vice dean, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, a retired Vatican diplomat from Argentina, are among the 116 cardinals over the age of 80 who cannot participate in the conclave.
The responsibility of managing the conclave thus falls upon the most senior member of the college, Italy’s Pietro Parolin, who served as secretary of state under Pope Francis.
Parolin, considered by media reports as one of the top contenders for the papacy, is Cardinal Elector No. 1, the first to take his oath of secrecy as well as cast the first ballot in an urn in front of Michaelangelo’s “The Last Judgement.”
He will be followed by Cardinal Fernando Filoni, former prefect of the old Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and apostolic nuncio to the Philippines in 2006-2007.
Elector No. 3 is Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who succeeded Filoni and became pro-prefect when the congregation was reorganized into the Dicastery for Evangelization.
No. 4 is Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who headed the dicastery that picks bishops, and No. 5 is the lone eastern-rite prelate, Louis Raphaël I Sako, patriarch of Baghdad.
After the top five cardinals, there are 108 cardinal-priests and 20 cardinal-deacons arranged by the date of their creation in a consistory.
Cardinals created in the same consistory followed the order of their listing in the Pontifical Yearbook, according to a check by CBCP News.
The Philippines has two cardinal priests: Cardinal Jose Advincula, the archbishop of Manila, and Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, bishop of Kalookan and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
Advincula, who was created cardinal by the late Pope Francis in the November 2020 consistory, is No. 72.
David, raised to the cardinalate in December 2024 in Francis’ final consistory, is 103rd on the list.
All 133 cardinal-electors will be sealed off from the rest of the world starting May 7 and until they choose a new pope by two-thirds majority (the magic number: 89).
Said David in a Facebook post before being sequestered in conclave: “How long before the white smoke comes out? That will be up to the Lord.”
