One Key to a Successful Campaign for Pope? Act Like Youre Not Campaigning.

In March 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina gave a roughly four-minute speech at one of the closed-door meetings in the Vatican before the conclave to elect the next pope.The short remarks, envisioning a church that got out of its insular comfort zones and self-referential habits, went over big.When the cardinals voted in the Sistine Chapel days later, they picked him to lead the way forward, and he emerged as Pope Francis.On Monday, after hundreds of thousands of faithful came to Francis’ funeral and burial over the weekend, cardinals will begin a critical week of such meetings, where church leaders, including those considered papabili, or pope material, will give brief statements about the major issues facing the church.

Those meetings began the day after Francis died, but they will now pick up in intensity, becoming a short campaign trail leading to next month’s conclave.They give the cardinals — especially those under the age of 80, who can vote in the conclave — a chance to feel one another out and gauge priorities, agendas and charisma.The meetings, so-called general congregations, are also a forum for potential flameouts.

The first rule of papal campaigning is that there is no papal campaigning.In other words, self-aggrandizement and transparent politicking are taboo in the non-campaign campaign.Or, as Vatican experts like to say: Whoever enters the conclave as pope exits a cardinal.Not always, though.

In 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then the dean of the College of Cardinals, gave a humdinger of a funeral homily for Pope John Paul II — he famously denounced “a dictatorship of relativism” — then entered the conclave with momentum and emerged on the balcony as Benedict XVI....