Edward Pentin’s List of 10 Papal Contenders You Should Know, by Edward Pentin
China’s Puzzling Influence On the Conclave, by Phil Lawler
May 5, 2025
Does the Holy Spirit Choose the Pope? Pope Benedict’s Surprising Answer, by Gavin Ashenden
May 5, 2025
Vatican crowd. Christian Lendl. Unsplash.
By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register,
Edward Pentin is the Register’s Senior Contributor and EWTN News Vatican Analyst. He began reporting on the Pope and the Vatican with Vatican Radio before moving on to become the Rome correspondent for EWTN’s National Catholic Register. He has also reported on the Holy See and the Catholic Church for a number of other publications including Newsweek, Newsmax, Zenit, The Catholic Herald, and The Holy Land Review, a Franciscan publication specializing in the Church and the Middle East. …
COMMENTARY: From Rome to the Global South, the cardinals are preparing to elect a new pope — but history shows that the Holy Spirit often surprises.
VATICAN CITY — 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. …
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