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Let's say you want to become pope, head of the Catholic Church and shepherd to over 1 billion faithful.
假设你想成为教皇，天主教会的领袖和10多亿信徒的牧者。
What requirements must you have for this lofty position: 1) Be a catholic and 2) Be a man.
要获得这一崇高的职位，你必须具备哪些条件：1)是天主教徒；2)是男性。
Which seems a little thin... and, while it's technically possible for a regular Sunday Catholic to become pope, the last time this happened was essentially never because becoming pope isn't like becoming president, you can't just run for office.
这似乎有点牵强……虽然普通的周日天主教徒理论上来说可以成为教皇，但上一次这种情况基本上从未发生过，因为成为教皇不像成为总统，你不能只是竞选公职。
Selecting the pope is an inside job and the men who do it are the cardinals, and while in theory they can select any catholic man to become pope, in practice they prefer to elevate one of their own.
选择教皇是一项内部工作，负责这项工作的人是红衣主教，虽然理论上他们可以选择任何天主教徒成为教皇，但实际上他们更愿意推选自己的人。
The last time a non-cardinal become pope was more than 600 years ago. So, while it isn't an official requirement, it's an unofficial, official requirement.
上一次非红衣主教成为教皇是在600多年前。因此，虽然这不是官方要求，但却是非官方的官方要求。
Thus in order to be pope you'll first need to be a cardinal and to do that you'll need to start climbing the catholic corporate ladder.
因此，要想成为教皇，你首先需要成为一名红衣主教，而要做到这一点，你需要开始在天主教内步步晋升。
Step 1: Become a Priest. Unlike some churches where you can fill out a form online and--poof--ordained.
步骤1：成为一名牧师。与某些教堂不同，你可以在网上填写表格，然后就被任命了。
The Catholic Church treats becoming a priest as a real, you-need-training profession.
天主教会将成为一名牧师视为一种真正的、需要培训的职业。
So you're going to require a lot of education: usually a college degree in Catholic Philosophy and then a masters in divinity.
所以你需要接受很多教育：通常是天主教哲学的大学学位，然后是神学硕士学位。
In addition to your educational qualifications, you must also be: A man Unmarried, Willing to remain celibate forever.
除了教育资格外，你还必须未婚，愿意永远保持独身。
If you meet these requirements, and have been working with the church, then you can be officially ordained as a priest.
如果你满足这些要求，并且一直在教会工作，那么你就可以正式被任命为牧师。
Which basically means you get to run a Catholic Church, or work with another priest who does.
这基本上意味着你可以经营天主教会，或者与另一位经营天主教会的牧师一起工作。
But, you want onward and to do that you need to take the job of the man who just made you a priest.
但是，你想要继续前进，为此你需要接受刚刚让你成为牧师的人的工作。
Step 2: Become a Bishop. Bishops are a much more select group: while there are about 400,000 catholic priests world wide, there are only about 5,000 bishops.
第2步：成为主教。主教是一个更加精选的群体：虽然全世界约有40万名天主教牧师，但只有大约5000名主教。
While priests get churches, bishops get cathedrals, from which they oversee a number of local churches.
牧师有教堂，主教有大教堂，他们从那里监督一些地方教堂。
To advance your career you must wait for a bishop in your area to be forced into retirement at age 75 or die sooner than that--freeing up space for you.
要想在事业上取得进步，你必须等待你所在地区的主教在75岁时被迫退休或在此之前去世——为你腾出职位。
But you can't just apply, because there's already a secret list of potential bishops that's updated every three years based on who the current bishops in your area think would make a good replacement for one of their own.
但你不能直接申请，因为已经有一份潜在主教的秘密名单，每三年更新一次，根据你所在地区的现任主教认为谁可以很好地替代他们自己的主教。
To be on that list, in addition to the obvious requirement of being a pious person, you should also: Be least 35 years old; Have been priest for at least five years;
要进入这份名单，除了显然需要虔诚之外，你还应该：年满35岁；担任牧师至少五年；
Have a doctorate in theology (or equivalent); Assuming you're all these things, your name may, or may not be on the secret list.
拥有神学博士学位（或同等学历）；假设你具备所有这些条件，你的名字可能会出现在秘密名单上，也可能不在。
The local bishops then give that list to the pope's ambassador for your country, known as the Apostolic Nuncio.
然后，当地主教将这份名单交给教皇驻贵国大使，即宗座大使。
The Nuncio picks three priests from the list, does in-depth research on them, conducts interviews and selects the one he thinks is best.
宗座大使从名单中挑选三名牧师，对他们进行深入研究，进行面试，然后选择他认为最合适的人选。
But it's not over, because the Nuncio sends his report to Vatican City and the congress of bishops who work there reviewing potential appointments from around the world.
但这还没有结束，因为宗座大使将他的报告发送给梵蒂冈城和在那里工作的主教会议，审查来自世界各地的潜在任命。
If the congress of bishops doesn't like any of the three candidates, they can tell the Nuncio to start over:
如果主教会议不喜欢这三名候选人中的任何一个，他们可以告诉宗座大使重新开始：
returning to the list, picking another three candidates--doing more research, more interviews and sending off the results.
回到名单上，再挑选三名候选人——做更多的研究，更多的面试，并提交结果。
When the congress of bishops is happy with one of the Nuncio's candidates that name is given to the pope, who can reject the candidate and start the whole process over.
当主教会议对宗座大使的候选人之一感到满意时，这个名字就会被提交给教皇，教皇可以拒绝该候选人并重新开始整个过程。
It shouldn't be a surprise that from a vacancy to a bishop's replacement can take months and, on occasion, years.
从空缺到主教的替换可能需要几个月，有时甚至几年，这并不奇怪。
But assuming that a bishop in your area retired (or died) at the right time and you were on the secret list of good priests and the Nuncio picked you
但假设您所在地区的主教在正确的时间退休（或死亡），而您又在优秀牧师的秘密名单上，宗座大使选择了您，
and you made it through his interview and the congress of bishops approved you and the pope didn't veto you--poof now you're now a bishop.
您通过了他的面试，主教会议批准了您，教皇没有否决您——现在您已经是主教了。
But you're still not on top. The penultimate promotion is... Step 3: Become a Cardinal.
但你还没有登上顶峰。倒数第二个晋升是……步骤3：成为红衣主教。
Despite the fancy name and snazzy red outfits to match cardinals are not the bosses of bishops, they are bishops,
尽管红衣主教有着花哨的名字和时髦的红色服装，但他们并不是主教的老板，他们就是主教，
just with an additional title and additional responsibilities--the most notable of which is electing the new pope.
只是多了一个头衔和其他责任——其中最引人注目的是选举新教皇。
The only way to become a cardinal is to get to current pope to appoint you as one--and of the 5,000 bishops, only about 200 are ever cardinals.
成为红衣主教的唯一方法是让现任教皇任命你为红衣主教——而在5000名主教中，只有大约200名是红衣主教。
But let's say your ambition doesn't go unnoticed by the pope and he makes you a cardinal--now it's time to play the waiting game for his death or retirement--and with popes death is vastly more likely.
但假设你的野心没有被教皇忽视，他任命你为红衣主教——现在是时候等待他死亡或退休了——而教皇死亡的可能性要大得多。
When either happens the cardinals under the age of 80 are brought to Vatican City where they are isolated from the outside world--presumably by taking away their cell phones and tablets and carrier pigeons.
无论发生哪种情况，80岁以下的红衣主教都会被带到梵蒂冈城，与世隔绝——大概是拿走他们的手机、平板电脑和信鸽。
Once sequestered, the election of a new pope can begin.
一旦与外界隔绝，就可以开始选举新教皇了。
These elections are never exactly the same because the ex-pope leaves instructions on how he wants his replacement to be picked, but in general it works like this:
这些选举从来都不一样，因为前任教皇会留下指示，说明他希望如何选出继任者，但一般来说，选举是这样的：
four times a day the cardinals go to the Sistine Chapel to vote--to become pope one of them must get a two thirds majority.
红衣主教们每天四次前往西斯廷教堂投票——要想成为教皇，其中一人必须获得三分之二的多数票。
There's a big dose of musent-be-too-hasty here as the cardinals don't just raise their hands, or use a modern preferential voting system,
这里有很大的“不能太仓促”的因素，因为红衣主教们不只是举手，也不使用现代的优先投票制度，
but instead write down one name on a piece of paper stand before the alter and say a long latin phrase, before officially casting the ballot.
而是在一张纸上写下一个名字，站在祭坛前，说一句冗长的拉丁语，然后才正式投票。
Once all the cardinals have done this, the votes are counted and then burned.
一旦所有红衣主教都这样做了，选票就会被计算，然后烧毁。
This why TV news stations covering the election of the pope use super-modern-hd-livestreaming cameras to look at a chimney.
这就是为什么报道教皇选举的电视新闻台使用超现代高清直播摄像机来观察烟囱的原因。
If the smoke is black, no new pope. The high victory threshold, and tediously slow voting process, is why it takes so long to elect a new pope.
如果烟是黑的，就没有新教皇。高门槛和冗长的投票过程是选举新教皇需要这么长时间的原因。
It's usually at least two weeks of voting four times a day six days a week (with one day a week for prayer) but the record length is three years.
通常，投票时间至少为两周，每天四次，每周六天（每周有一天祈祷），但最长的记录是三年。
Assuming you, eventually, win the support of your fellow cardinals, you have one final thing to do before becoming pope: pick yourself a new name.
假设你最终赢得了其他红衣主教的支持，在成为教皇之前，你还有最后一件事要做：给自己取一个新名字。
There is no formal rule, you can name yourself anything you like but it's tradition to take the name of a previous pope.
没有正式的规定，你可以给自己起任何你喜欢的名字，但传统上要取前任教皇的名字。
Upon your acceptance of the job, the final ballots are burned clean to make the smoke white and announce to the world that a new pope has been selected.
接受这份工作后，最后的选票会被烧掉，使烟雾变白，并向全世界宣布新教皇已经选出。
So that's the career path: be born into the right half of the population, become one of a billion catholics, then one of 400,000 priests, then one of 5,000 bishops,
这就是你的职业道路：出生在人口的右半部分，成为十亿天主教徒中的一员，然后成为四十万牧师中的一员，然后成为五千名主教中的一员，
then one of 200 cardinals, wait for the current pope to die or retire, and convince two thirds of your fellow cardinals to select you as the one, the only pope.
然后成为两百名红衣主教中的一员，等待现任教皇去世或退休，并说服三分之二的其他红衣主教选择你作为唯一的教皇。
