With the latest conclave of the Roman Catholic Church poised to begin meeting May 7, it seems quite likely we will know who the 267th Pope is by the following weekend.
For now, the press and particularly social media are overflowing with speculation on who will be the next Pope. That is all that it is — speculation, since no one can predict what 133 cardinals sworn to secrecy and casting secret ballots will do.
It is frequently noted in the press that Pope Francis named 80% of the College of Cardinals, that he has "stacked the deck" for a successor who will carry on his agenda with "continuity."
But that almost never happens in the history of the papacy. The more conservative John Paul II and Benedict XVI had picked 100% of the College of Cardinals in 2013, yet they elected the progressive Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis.
"Just because Francis had picked so many of the cardinal electors is no guarantee at all they will choose someone like him," author and National Catholic Register senior correspondent Ed Pentin told Newsmax, "I think of [the more progressive] John XXIII following [conservative] Pius XII in 1958. [Popes] are always their own men, governing the church in their own unique way."
But based on the modern history of papal conclaves, one very good bet to make is that the next Pope will be unlike the late Pope Francis. In other words, the princes of the church will first choose a Pope unlike the previous one, and second, the outcome will be a surprise.
Of the six conclaves held since 1958, two were virtual coronations and four ended with outcomes almost completely unexpected. Archbishop Giovanni Battista Montini of Milan, a close associate of the late Pope Pius XII and the first cardinal named by John XXIII, was considered John's heir apparent and elected as Pope Paul VI in 1963.
A similar saga is that of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a close friend and ally of John Paul II throughout his papacy, whose swift election as Pope Benedict XVI in two days in 2005 was seen as a continuation of John Paul's agenda.
But the other four conclaves since 1958 all yielded results that were unexpected and surprising. Cardinal Angelo Roncalli of Venice, a seasoned Vatican diplomat, was certainly on the New York Times' list of 12 papabili (likely candidates for Pope) following the death of Pius XII. But he did not stand out on the list and was elected on the 11th ballot after several ballots in which the leader was Gregorio Agagianian, Catholic Armenian Patriarch of Cilicia. Agagianian's youth and that he was a non-Italian almost surely were factors in the election of the older (77) Italian Roncalli as John XXIII.
When Pope Paul VI died in 1978, the conclave averted a feared clash between conservative Cardinal Giuseppe Siri of Genoa, considered an opponent of many of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and liberal Cardinal Giovanni Benelli of Florence, who sought advancing all of the conciliar agenda. Instead, the cardinals took an unexpected step and on the fourth ballot elected the quiet and relatively little-known Patriarch of Venice Albino Luciani in August 1978.
Luciani, who chose the name John Paul I, died unexpectedly Sept. 26, 1978 – exactly one month after his election.
The Siri-Bonelli clash cardinals had avoided occurred at the next conclave and, as authors Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi noted in their biography of John Paul II entitled "His Holiness," "[t]he first two rounds were fought out between Siri and Bonelli [and] each got about 30 votes." As Siri appeared to lose ground in subsequent rounds, other Italian candidates began to get votes. On the third day, Cardinals Franz Koenig of Austria and Ratzinger began to float the name of Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla. On the third day, he drew five votes, and on the fourth the conclave astonished the world by not only electing the first non-Italian Pope in 400 years but also one from a Communist country with atheism as its official religion.
When Benedict XVI unexpectedly abdicated the papacy in 2013, bookmakers as well as Vatican watchers bet on Cardinal Angelo Scola. The prelate of Milan was close to both Benedict and John Paul and one Italian news service even reported Scola was elected following the white smoke confirming a Pope is elected. But, of course, it wasn't, and the relatively little-known Bergoglio became the first pope from the Western Hemisphere (or as Italians referred to it, "the other end of the world").
No one knows who will be Pope. But history suggests that it is more likely than not his election will be a surprise – and he won't be Francis II.