October 1978 papal conclave October 1978 papal conclave The papal conclave of October 1978 was triggered by the death of Pope John Paul I on 28 September just 33 days after his election on 26 August. The conclave to elect John Paul I's successor began on 14 October and ended two days later on 16 October, after eight ballots. The cardinal electors elected Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, Archbishop of Kraków, as the new pope. Resulting in the most recent Year of Three Popes, he accepted his election and took the pontifical name of "John Paul II". Ten days after the funeral of Pope John Paul
Avignon Papacy influence by the French throne up to 1378. Such partisanship of the papacy was one of the reasons for the dropping esteem for the institution, which in turn was one of the reasons for the schism from 1378–1417. In the period of the Schism, the power struggle in the papacy became a battlefield of the major powers, with France supporting the Pope in Avignon and England supporting the Pope in Rome. At the end of the century, still in the state of schism, the papacy had lost most of its direct political power, and the nation states of France and