1922 conclave

Coat of arms during the vacancy of the Holy See
Dates and location
2–6 February 1922 Sistine Chapel, Apostolic Palace, Rome
Key officials
Dean	Vincenzo Vannutelli
Camerlengo	Pietro Gasparri
Protopriest	Michael Logue
Protodeacon	Gaetano Bisleti
Secretary	Luigi Sincero
Election
Ballots	14
Elected Pope
Achille Ratti Name taken: Pius XI
← 1914 1939 →

The papal conclave of 1922, was held following Pope Benedict XV's death from pneumonia on 22 January 1922 after a reign of eight years. Some 53 of the 60 cardinals assembled in the Sistine Chapel eleven days later on 2 February to elect his successor. They chose Cardinal Achille Ratti on the fourteenth ballot, held on the fifth day of the conclave. He took the name Pius XI. The new pope immediately revived the traditional public blessing from the balcony, Urbi et Orbi ("to the city and to the world"), which his predecessors had eschewed since the loss of Rome to the Italian state in 1870.

The four non-European cardinals did not participate in the conclave. Three of them arrived too late and one did not attempt the journey. Three weeks after his election, Pope Pius XI issued rules extending the time between the death of a pope and the start of the conclave in order to increase the likelihood that cardinals from distant locations could participate in the next conclave.

The previous five conclaves had produced a seesawing between conservatives and liberals, from the conservative Pope Gregory XVI in 1831 to the initially liberal Pope Pius IX. By the time of his death in 1878 Pius IX had become a reactionary conservative and he was succeeded by the liberal Pope Leo XIII, who on his death was succeeded by the populist conservative Pope Pius X. In 1914 the liberal Benedict XV was elected.

At the death of Benedict XV there were 61 members of the College of Cardinals. Enrique Almaraz y Santos, the Archbishop of Toledo, died the same day. Three of the remaining 60 cardinals did not attend the conclave for reasons of health: José María Martín de Herrera y de la Iglesia, Giuseppe Prisco, and Lev Skrbenský z Hříště. Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro knew he could not reach Rome in time for the conclave and did not attempt the journey. The other three non-European cardinals–William Henry O'Connell of Boston, Denis Dougherty of Philadelphia, and Louis-Nazaire Bégin of Québec City–did not arrive in time to participate in the conclave.