What will really decide who becomes the new Pope

Progressive cardinals may believe it is time for an African pope, but the predominantly Italian conclave has other ideas, says Catherine Pepinster

Modern-day popes have been giants on the world stage. They have crossed the planet on their tours to meet the Roman Catholic faithful. They have greeted British monarchs, US presidents and dozens of other global leaders in Rome and abroad. They have tweeted as @pontifex, and waved from their Popemobile.

When it comes to choosing a new pope, it’s not always the likeliest candidate that emerges.

In 1978, the Archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, was elected as John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. His successor, Benedict XVI, was a Bavarian German. Pope Francis came from, as he put it, the peripheries of Argentina. Could the cardinals, gathering for the next conclave, or papal election, now decide it is time for another surprise: a Black pope?

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If you have seen the recent award-winning film Conclave, you will have watched a remarkable drama unfold as the cardinals prepare to choose who should become the next pontiff. Robert Harris, the novelist whose work of the same name was the basis of the film, did his homework, including consulting the late Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, who voted in the election won by Benedict XVI.

Murphy-O’Connor – who, like all voting cardinals, would have taken an oath to keep secret what happened beneath Michaelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel – did sometimes hint at what went on during the conclave. I suspect he told Harris, as he once told me, that in the early rounds of the 2005 ballot, he voted for his friend, Jorge Bergoglio, cardinal of Buenos Aires.

And then, in 2013, after Benedict shocked the world by becoming the first pope in 600 years to resign, Murphy-O’Connor was past 80 and too old to vote. But he was able to travel to Rome and helped garner support for Bergoglio, his old friend, who was duly elected as Pope Francis.

It is this kind of pre-conclave lobbying that helps shape what happens when the Sistine Chapel doors are locked and the secret vote begins. Ever since the 88-year-old pontiff was hospitalised with pneumonia in February, cardinals visiting Rome have been contemplating what happens next.

When sizing up candidates to be the next man to lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, the 138 members of the College of Cardinals eligible to select him will have asked: “Is he papabile?”, the Italian term signifying a cardinal who possesses both the required qualities and connections.

Catholicism has long been in decline in Europe, its former heartland. It is stronger in South America and Africa, and growing in Asia. So the cardinals may well think it is time to consider an African pope.

Liberals may well think that a good thing – it is more than 1,500 years since the last African-heritage pope, Gelasius I. However, the most likely candidates could well put progressive noses out of joint.

Take Robert Sarah from Guinea. His messages are clear: Islam is a problem, abortion and same-sex relationships are wrong, the Church must uphold traditional teachings on sex and marriage, and the old-style Tridentine Rite should not be banned, as Francis ordered.

Another African, Peter Turkson, from Ghana, is similarly tough on sex and marriage and has also been outspoken about Islam, but like Francis has made issues such as justice, climate change and peacemaking priorities.

A quick look at the demographics of the College of Cardinals’ selectorate – only those under the age of 80 can vote in the conclave – will reveal that 111 of them were appointed by Francis himself. Choosing the voters who will elect your successor is a pope’s greatest power.

If Francis has indeed loaded the dice, then Sarah hasn’t a chance, and Turkson may be in with a shout. But it doesn’t always work out that way. In 2013, the voting cardinals were men who had been chosen by the conservative John Paul II and Benedict XVI, yet they selected Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina.

To some Vatican observers, Francis has been far more progressive than expected: he urged parish priests to consider allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion – previously they were banned – and to offer blessings to same-sex couples. He has harangued Vatican cardinals for being too hung up on the trappings of office, and criticised politicians like Donald Trump for being “not Christian” in their treatment of migrants.

Many working in Rome agree that the past 12 years have been a rollercoaster. Even those who supported Francis think it’s time to let his reforms bed in and for everyone to have a quieter life. They have a point. A pope with fewer enemies and fewer adulatory fans would be the unifying figure that’s needed after the divisive figures of John Paul, Benedict and Francis.

Also, the Italians think it’s time the papacy came back to them. Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, and Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, currently Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, would also be popular with centrists.

My hunch is that Cardinal Mario Grech of Malta, popular with Francis and liberal when it comes to gay people and marriage, might also appeal to the centrists. But the old Italian saying about the conclave, “the man who goes in a pope comes out a cardinal” may yet prove true again.

The ones everyone talks about don’t get the votes. Or, as we Catholics would put it, the Holy Spirit could yet surprise us.