Because they’re hopeless at it. Diplomatic correspondence published by an Italian newspaper reveals that U.S. embassy officials, handicapping the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI, practically ruled out the election of the ultimate victor, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Among the candidates portrayed as more promising in the cable to Washington was Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos, subsequently the source of great embarrassment to the Vatican for his management of the Williamson affair and his support for a bishop who shielded a pedophile priest from the civil authorities.
Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli, a well-connected Vatican specialist, has observed with undisguised amusement that the diplomats’ predictions seem to have been based largely on the writings of American journalists.
