The Cardinal Electors, Then and Now

Does a conclave elect the man the Holy Spirit desires to lead the Church? History teaches that sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s view was that too many poor popes have been elected to say that the man who emerges is always God’s choice. At the same time, the Holy Spirit, in Ratzinger’s memorable phrase, offers the “assurance . . . that the thing cannot be totally ruined.”

The Holy Spirit does not get a vote in the conclave. The cardinals elect the pope, and no one else. The more apt question then is whether this particular conclave is likely to be an instrument of the Holy Spirit, knowing of course that even Balaam’s ass can speak should God so will it (Num. 22:21–35).

At 133 electors, it is the largest conclave in history. Quantitatively big, it has enormous geographic reach, from Mongolia to Madagascar, but not Montreal or Milan. Quantity, though, is not as important as quality.

A contrast is illustrative. The twin conclaves of 1978 elected two popes, both of whom took the name John Paul. It is evident now that the second John Paul was God’s choice, but that the cardinals could not initially see their way to electing a fifty-eight-year-old non-Italian, so they first got it not exactly wrong, but not exactly right either, electing Cardinal Albino Luciani. Then the Holy Spirit did cast his vote, and Blessed John Paul I was dead thirty-three days later. 

How might, qualitatively, the electors of 1978 compare to those of 2025? In 1978, the leading theological light in the conclave was Joseph Ratzinger of Munich, created a cardinal only the year before. Last year, Pope Francis added Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., to the College of Cardinals, a former master of the Dominican order whose term ended a quarter-century ago amidst deep misgivings about his theological orthodoxy. Many cardinal electors would likely not permit Cardinal Radcliffe to preach a retreat to their own priests.

In 1978, the heroic head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the living martyr Cardinal Josyf Slipyj, was in Rome but not eligible to vote due to his age. His presence, though, reminded the electors of the persecuted Church. 

In 2025, Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk, perhaps the most outstanding bishop in the Catholic Church these past dozen years, is also in Rome these weeks. He is not part of the conclave, as Pope Francis refused to make him a cardinal—as were his predecessors—in ten straight consistories. There are few outside the papal household who think that this deliberate dishonoring of Ukrainian Catholics was of the Holy Spirit. A conclave constructed by the late Holy Father to exclude Shevchuk is one less likely to be an instrument of the Holy Spirit. 

In 1978, one of the greatest bishops of the twentieth century, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, primate of Poland, was present. His cardinal titular church was Santa Maria in Trastevere, the same title once held by Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore. Wyszyński was the lion that stood up to the Soviet empire. 

In 2025, another cardinal linked to that church, Matteo Zuppi of Italy, will be an elector. Santa Maria in Trastevere was taken when he was created a cardinal, so a new title was fashioned for him, Sant’Egidio in Trastevere. Cardinal Zuppi has been the papal envoy for the Ukrainian war, visiting both Moscow and Beijing. He does not have the spirit of Blessed Stefan Wyszyński.

In 1978, there was a cardinal from the capital region of Argentina who had been called to curial service. Cardinal Eduardo Pironio was formerly the bishop of Mar del Plata, and was serving as prefect of religious in 1978. He would later, as president of the Council for the Laity, become something of a father of the World Youth Days, the first of which outside of Rome was held in Buenos Aires in 1987. Pironio was beatified in 2023. 

In 2025, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of doctrine, is from the same capital region of Argentina, appointed early on by Pope Francis to be archbishop of La Plata. The pre-elevation writings of Cardinal Fernández—leaving aside his curial service entirely—would disqualify any cause of his from consideration by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.

In 1978, Cardinal Bernardin Gantin was president of the Council for Justice and Peace. A regal figure of immense stature, Gantin would go on to serve as prefect of bishops and as dean of the College of Cardinals, retiring at eighty in 2002; he was succeeded as dean by Ratzinger. Had there been a conclave in the mid-1990s, it is possible, even likely, that he would have been elected pope.

In 2025, Cardinal Michael Czerny of Canada is the head of the successor Vatican department to the one Gantin headed. Perhaps the leading curial proponent of the migration and climate agenda of Pope Francis, Czerny speaks of the “cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” He allies himself with the more liberal strains of Catholicism, traveling to Victoria in 2022 to eulogize Bishop Remi De Roo, for decades the leading proponent in the global episcopate that Vatican II was a rupture with the past.

In late 1977, being attentive to the quality of the College of Cardinals, Pope St. Paul VI held a mini-consistory to add five cardinals: Ratzinger, Gantin, Giovanni Benelli, and Mario Luigi Ciappi, as well as revealing the name of František Tomášek, another lion of the east who had been named in pectore previously. The last consistory of Pope Francis, in late 2024, excluded Shevchuk yet again, as well as Archbishop José Gómez of Los Angeles and Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney.

Can the Holy Spirit work through the conclave of 2025? Certainly. Do the conclaves of 1978 appear, in the quality of their membership, to have been more fitting instruments? Certainly. Is it the Holy Spirit’s will that the conclave includes Cardinals Fernández and Radcliffe, but excludes Archbishops Shevchuk and Fisher? 

That is a tough argument to make, but again, to quote Ratzinger upon his election as Pope Benedict XVI: “The Lord knows how to work and to act even with inadequate instruments.” This conclave has plenty of instruments far more inadequate than Joseph Ratzinger. For myself, how would I be confident that the Holy Spirit had in fact guided the conclave in choosing the right man? If the electors were to elect a non-cardinal for the first time since Urban IV in 1378 (which is more recent than the last abdication of a pope before Benedict XVI, which was in 1294). 

Only the cardinals can elect the pope. They are not the only ones who can be elected pope. My candidate: Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv.