Jeanie Hannaman

By Gavin Ashenden, The Catholic Herald - While still Cardinal Ratzinger, he was asked by Bavarian television in 1997 exactly that question: “Is the Holy Spirit responsible for the election of a pope?”... His reply might surprise some: “I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the Pope… I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather, like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense—not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote.

By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register - Predicting the next pope is, as one colleague once aptly put it, like throwing darts at a dartboard with a blindfold... Although we have some idea who the prominent candidates are, knowing with any accuracy the cardinal who the members of the Sacred College will choose as the Successor of Peter is something of a fools errand... Almost no Vaticanists, for example, had Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio on their lists in 2013. And the betting shops fare no better, with many giving some of the best odds for unlikely candidates or, in the case of this conclave, to cardinals over 80 who usually have the least chance of election.