ROME
National Catholic Reporter

by John L Allen Jr on Jun. 18, 2012 NCR Today

ROME — As a journalist, I pride myself on trying to see things based on the facts as they stand, not as I or someone else might like them to be.

Thus whenever I get the “next pope” question, I try to stay tethered to reality, not floating long-shots that might excite one constituency or another, but pointing to figures who seem to have the best chance of actually being elected.

The problem is that when it comes to the essentially unknowable, it’s tough to be confident about what “reality” actually is. There are no polls, no fundraising reports, no ad buys, nothing empirical other than “buzz” to separate serious contenders from the crowd. Recent history suggests that sometimes those perceived front-runners come through, as in Paul VI and Benedict XVI, but other times…