VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
by John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 24, 2013
ROME — John Allen is offering a profile each day of one of the most frequently touted papabili, or men who could be pope. The old saying in Rome is that he who enters a conclave as pope exits as a cardinal, meaning there’s no guarantee one of these men actually will be chosen. They are, however, the leading names drawing buzz in Rome these days, ensuring they will be in the spotlight as the conclave draws near. The profiles of these men also suggest the issues and the qualities other cardinals see as desirable heading into the election.
There’s a lot of chatter these days about a “Third World pope,” and it’s a realistic possibility. Politically speaking, however, it overlooks one bit of arithmetic: 61 of the 116 cardinals who will file into the Sistine Chapel still hail from Europe, so discounting candidates from the Old Continent means ruling out half the talent pool a priori.
Moreover, there are Europeans and then there are Europeans. Electing an Italian might strike some cardinals as heading back to the future, but choosing a pope from a long-neglected corner of the continent might seem almost as bold to them as picking someone from, say, Latin America.
If so, many church insiders believe that Cardinal Péter Erdõ of Budapest, Hungary, could get a very serious look.
A canon lawyer by training, Erdõ has been on the ecclesiastical fast track his entire career. In 2001, while he was still an auxiliary bishop and before he’d even turned 50, he was elected to his first term as President of the Council of Episcopal Conferences of Europe. He was reelected to a second five-year term in 2006.
In 2002, he was named the Archbishop of Hungary’s premier see at the tender age of 50, and made a cardinal a year later. At 52, he was the youngest cardinal to participate in the conclave that elected Benedict XVI in 2005. Eight years later, there are still only five cardinal electors younger than Erdõ, who’s now 60.
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