Election to Papacy

In August 1978 following the death of Pope Paul VI, Cardinal Wojtyła voted in the Papal conclave that elected Pope John Paul I, who at 65 was considered young by papal standards. However, John Paul I died after only 33 days as Pope, thereby precipitating another conclave.
The conclave commenced on 14 October, ten days after the funeral of Pope John Paul I. It was divided between two particularly strong candidates for the papacy: Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, the conservative Archbishop of Genoa, and the liberal Archbishop of Florence, Giovanni Cardinal
Benelli, a close associate of John Paul I.
Supporters of Benelli were confident that he would be elected, and in early ballots, Benelli came within nine votes of election. However, the scale of opposition to both men meant that neither was likely to receive the votes needed for election, and Franz Cardinal König, Archbishop of Vienna, individually suggested to his fellow electors a compromise candidate: the Polish Cardinal, Karol Józef Wojtyła. Wojtyła ultimately won the election on the eighth ballot on the second day with, according to the Italian press, 99 votes from the 111 participating electors. He subsequently chose the name John Paul II and the traditional white smoke informed the crowd gathered in St Peter's Square that a pope had been chosen. He accepted his election with these words: ‘With obedience in faith to Christ, my Lord, and with trust in the Mother of Christ and the Church, in spite of great difficulties, I accept.’ When the new pontiff himself appeared on the balcony, he broke tradition by addressing the gathered crowd:

“Dear brothers and sisters, we are saddened at the death of our beloved Pope John Paul I, and so the cardinals have called for a new bishop of Rome. They called him from a faraway land - far and yet always close because of our communion in faith and Christian traditions. I was afraid to accept that responsibility, yet I do so in a spirit of obedience to the Lord and total faithfulness to Mary, our most Holy Mother. I am speaking to you in your - no, our Italian language. If I make a mistake, please ‘corrict’ me...″

Wojtyła became the 264th Pope according to the chronological list of popes. At only 58 years of age, he was the youngest pope elected since Pope Pius IX in 1846, who was 54. Like his immediate predecessor, Pope John Paul II dispensed with the traditional Papal coronation and instead received ecclesiastical investiture with the simplified Papal inauguration on 22 October 1978. During his inauguration, when the cardinals were to kneel before him to take their vows and kiss his ring, he stood up as the Polish prelate Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński knelt down, stopped him from kissing the ring, and hugged him.