The Anti-Manichaeist

The question they try to tease out of the data is how best to explain changes in voting patterns during papal elections.  Are changes in cardinals’ votes explained better by past voting with cardinals strategically choosing to back someone who is leading the pack, or are changes discernable from conversations as to what is the will of God between cardinals during break periods. 

The results are that the conversations during break periods have generally tended not to support the eventual winners.  The eventual winners have more often been determined by strategic voting, as cardinals come to support a candidate that has taken a significant lead.  The study remarks that one significant exception to this pattern was Pope John Paul II.

Whether this testifies to the will of God moving within the church is a far more open question. As I learned in my studies of history of thought in grad school, the traditional catholic approach to decision-making has been to argue endlessly and then all get behind whatever decision is finally made. From my non-Catholic perspective, strategic voting would more likely seem to value unity for its own sake, rather than per se being the result of listening to the movings of the Holy Spirit.  In my humble opinion, it would seem that the movings would more naturally evince themselves through conversations during break periods. 

And I strongly doubt one can presume that the RCChurch´s leadership selection process has been teleologically led by the Holy Spirit.  This is especially true when the fervency of its membership is seriously flagging in much of the world and its leadership of Cardinals underrepresents the underdeveloped world where the Holy Spirit is most moving.

dlw