Michael Severance, operations manager of Acton’s Rome office, is asking the question on everyone’s mind, “Who will be pope #266?” In The Catholic World Report, Severance makes note of the “amateur assessments” first:
By now we have heard every hypothesis from scores of budget-pinching and rookie mass media stumbling on Piazza San Pietro’s uneven cobblestones. They multitask as correspondent-producer-fixers and are armed with the latest generation of smartphones, tablets, and other species of espresso-stained electronic gadgets that replace expensive backroom media techs.
You wonder when they have time to actually research their cases, much less post and broadcast their news. But indeed time—moltissimo tempo—they have had.
They have spoken of the “Bergoglio comeback” (apparently he was a runner-up in 2005) and the mightily leveraged “Italian block” that will surely vote in one of their own to fill a 35-year power vacuum.
They have analyzed and lobbied for non-traditional but surely viable candidates from Latin America (Cardinal Scherer of Brazil), Africa (Cardinal Turkson of Ghana), and Asia (the “baby” 54-year-old Cardinal Tagle of the Philippines).
Severance, however, believes that there are more serious contenders. He interviewed several people with above-average insight into the conclave: Read more on Who Will Be Pope #266?…
