A little known but astonishing fact about the election of a Pope is that although Pope Paul VI had set a limit of 120 elector cardinals in 1975, nearly all his successors have ignored it. Only his stipulation of 80 as the maximum age to vote has remained. This is very significant now as Pope Francis appointed a whopping 103 of the 135 cardinals currently eligible to vote for his successor, as they are under the age of 80. In all he had appointed 163 cardinals from 76 nations.

Allegations of stacking the deck would certainly have ensued had Pope Francis been anything but a popular religious leader who by right is an absolute monarch when it comes to the affairs of the Vatican and the Catholic Church. Remember how many times the US media informs viewers and readers that six of the nine sitting judges of the US Supreme Court have been appointed by Presidents George W Bush and Donald Trump? The connotation is not hard to guess.

And no one can deny – especially after watching The Conclave – that politics and intrigue are part and parcel of the activities of the upper echelons of the Catholic clergy and any Pope trying to protect his legacy could fall back on this power to appoint. None more so than, presumably, the first non-European Pope since Pope Gregory III who was Syrian and died in 741. Interestingly, six of Gregory III’s seven immediate predecessors were all from the Syria-Anatolia region.

So, the Catholic Church has not always been alabaster white. There were even three popes from Africa — Victor I (189-199 CE), Miltiades (311-314CE) and Gelasius I (492-496CE) — but as the last one from there was in office 1,500 years ago, the view that the Catholic Church has been a European monopoly is not unwarranted. Even Pope Francis was not much of a departure from the European norm........

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