Preparing for a Bad Pope, by Thomas V. Mirus 

By Thomas V. Mirus, Catholic Culture, May 05, 2025

 Thomas V. Mirus is President of Trinity Communications and Director of Podcasts for CatholicCulture.org, hosts The Catholic Culture Podcast, and co-hosts Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast. 

Asked in 1997 whether the Holy Spirit is responsible for the election of a pope, Joseph Ratzinger said:

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. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined…There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!

What may have seemed like an academic question in 1997 gained more immediate resonance during Pope Francis’s reign. This quote began to circulate widely as Catholics struggled to make sense of what was happening in the Vatican. Ratzinger countered a popular misconception that might be an obstacle to seeing any given pontificate clearly. If we are not guaranteed that the cardinals will make a good decision, then we are also not guaranteed that every pope will be good….

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