Papal conclave, 1922

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 →

After a reign of just eight years, Pope Benedict XV died on 22 January 1922 of pneumonia. At his death there were 61 members of the College of Cardinals. However, later that same day, Enrique Almaraz y Santos, the Archbishop of Toledo, died, leaving a college of 60 cardinals to elect Pope Benedict's successor.

53 of the 60 cardinals assembled in the Sistine Chapel on 2 February. Cardinals José María Martín de Herrera y de la Iglesia, Giuseppe Prisco and Lev Skrbenský z Hříště did not attend for reasons of health, whilst the four non-European cardinals – William Henry O'Connell of Boston, Denis Dougherty of Philadelphia, Louis-Nazaire Bégin of Québec City and Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro – did not arrive in time and missed the conclave. Because all these four except Cavalcanti (who was ill and had been given a coadjutor archbishop to help governing his archdiocese precisely because of his illness) did aim to make the journey to Rome, Pius XI was to change the rules so that cardinals from distant locations had a better chance of participating in the conclave by extending the time between the death of a Pope and the election of his successor.