abstract
| - The following were the cardinal electors in the papal conclaves of August and October 1978. Arranged by region (not by the linguistic groups commonly used in universal church senacles), and within each alphabetically (not the official order of precedence, which is not relevant to conclave procedure). Because there was such a brief period between the two conclaves, the lists of electors are nearly identical and thus they are presented in the same article. However, the following notes have to be made. There were 114 electors at the time of the August conclave, but only 111 of them actually participated; due to ill health, Valerian Gracias, John Joseph Wright, and Bolesław Filipiak did not attend. Cardinal Wright, however, did participate in the October conclave. Cardinals Gracias and Filipiak, who had been too sick in August like Wright, again did not participate in October; Gracias died during Pope John Paul I’s pontificate and Filipiak died on the opening day of the October conclave. As Albino Luciani had been elected pope at the August conclave and subsequently died, the October conclave was also attended by 111 electors. There were fifteen cardinals who had lost the right to participate in both conclaves for having reached age eighty. As of September 6, 2009, Luis Aponte Martínez, Eugênio de Araújo Sales, Paulo Evaristo Arns, William Baum and Joseph Ratzinger are the only five living Cardinal electors from this period.
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