#22 The Ideological Space of the Papal Conclave

This week, the papal conclave begins its deliberations to elect the next pope. I’m not particularly religious, nor do I claim any special expertise in Vatican affairs, but I do have a weakness for rabbit holes. Recently, I stumbled upon the College of Cardinals Report, a website that compiles demographic and ideological data on the cardinals participating in the election. It offers a closer look at the makeup of the conclave’s “electorate” (if we can call it that), and for a political scientist, it’s a tempting invitation to explore the ideological currents that might influence the selection of the next pope.

Officially, of course, none of this matters. The conclave isn’t about politics; it’s about discerning the will of God, with cardinals guided by the Holy Spirit in a process of divine inspiration. But let’s suspend that premise for just a moment and assume this is, in fact, a political process—one where ideology, strategy, and power dynamics might just play a role. Given that there are roughly 1.5 billion Catholics worldwide, the implications of this "non-political" election are not exactly trivial.

The website itself isn’t the most user-friendly for data analysis, but with a bit of cleaning and tweaking, it’s possible to make some graphs—and even run a few regressions.

Who Gets to Vote?

The first dataset includes all 252 Cardinals, along with their country of origin, age, and the pope who nominated them. However, not all Cardinals can vote—only those under the age of 80 are eligible to participate in the conclave. This leaves 147 voting Cardinals in the data. Analyzing their demographics reveals some interesting patterns.

In terms of geographical distribution, European cardinals still make up the largest share of the entire College of Cardinals. Among the voting cardinals—those under the age of 80—Europe dominates with about 39%, followed by Asia (17%), North America (15%), South America and Africa (both at 13%), and Oceania (2.7%). The chart below compares this distribution with the estimated share of Catholics worldwide, highlighting the fact that Europe remains significantly overrepresented. Latin America, for instance, holds the largest share of the global Catholic population but is represented by only a small fraction of the cardinal electors.

Also striking is the breakdown of who appointed these Cardinals. Of the electors in the report, a staggering 76% were appointed by Pope Francis. Just 18% were nominated by Benedict XVI, and only 5% date back ...