Cardinal electors for the 1939 conclave

The papal conclave of 1939 was convened to elect a pope, the leader of the Catholic Church, to succeed Pope Pius XI following his death on 10 February 1939. The time period between the previous pope's death and the start of the conclave had been extended by Pius XI's motu proprio, Cum proxime, following the late arrival of several electors in the previous conclave.

Of the 62 members of the College of Cardinals at the time of Pius XI's death, all participated in the subsequent conclave. Of the 62 electors, 6 were cardinal bishops, 48 were cardinal priests, and 8 were cardinal deacons; 2 had been created cardinals by Pope Pius X, 8 by Pope Benedict XV, and 52 by Pope Pius XI; 28 worked in the service of the Holy See (such as in the Roman Curia), 33 were in pastoral ministry outside Rome, and one was in academia. The oldest cardinal elector in the conclave was Gennaro Granito Pignatelli di Belmonte, at the age of 87, and the youngest was Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira, at the age of 50.

The cardinal electors entered the Sistine Chapel to begin the conclave on 1 March 1939. On 2 March, after three ballots over two days, they elected Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the camerlengo and cardinal secretary of state, who took the papal name Pius XII.

Cardinal electors

The data below are as of 10 February 1939, the date on which the Holy See became vacant. Cardinals belonging to institutes of consecrated life or to societies of apostolic life are indicated by the relevant post-nominal letters.

Cardinal electors by continent and country

The 62 attending cardinal electors were from 16 countries. The countries with the greatest number of cardinal electors were Italy (thirty-four), France (six), and Germany (five).

(Theodor Innitzer, the Archbishop of Vienna was originally from Austria, which had been annexed by Germany a year before the conclave, and ceased to be an independent state.)