What is "conclavism"

Conclavism is the claim to election as pope by a group of the established College of Cardinals. This claim is usually associated with the claim, known as sedevacantism, that the present holder of the title of pope is a heretic and therefore not truly pope, as a result of which the faithful remnant of the Catholic Church has the right to elect a true pope.

The term comes from the word " conclave", the term for a meeting of the College of Cardinals convened to elect a Bishop of Rome, when that see is vacant, but which proponents of conclavism apply to the group that elects an alternative pope.

A similar but distinct phenomenon is that of those (referred to as "mysticalists") who base their claim to the papacy on supposed personal supernatural revelations.