Word: archbishop
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...contest in Rome this month is by no means confined to these three Italians and two non-Italians: they are simply the early-form leaders in a very open race. There is, for example, a second rank of Italian papabili, led by the able Archbishop of Florence, Giovanni Cardinal Benelli, 57. As Substitute Secretary of State under French Cardinal Jean Villot for a decade, Benelli wielded more power than his boss, acting effectively as the Pope's chief of staff. Paul rewarded him last year with a red hat and the Archdiocese of Florence, but he is still quite...
Salvatore Cardinal Pappalardo, 59, Archbishop of Palermo, might be a more conciliatory choice. A longtime teacher of Vatican diplomacy who was pro-nuncio to Indonesia during the anti-Communist bloodbath of 1965, Pappalardo capably moved into his faction-ridden Sicilian diocese as a unifying leader. A fellow southern Italian with an outside chance is Corrado Cardinal Ursi, 70, Archbishop of Naples. A widely admired pastor of the poor, Ursi travels from parish to parish to be sure all his people are cared for. His serious drawback is his parochialism: he speaks only Italian and has never served outside the country...
Perhaps the most attractive Italian of all has almost no hope of election: Archbishop Anastasio Ballestrero of Turin. Installed a year ago, Ballestrero, 64, is a Carmelite friar noted for his spirituality. He was slated for a red hat. The Cardinals in conclave could choose him (in theory, any Catholic male can be named Pope), just as they are said to have considered Archbishop Montini in the 1958 election. But no non-Cardinal has been elected since the 14th century...
...Pius XII. A tall, gentle man, quick to smile, he is now prefect of the Commission on Justice and Peace. Another is Britain's George Basil Cardinal Hume, 55, a Benedictine monk who in 1976 was plucked from obscurity as Abbot of Ampleforth Abbey to become Archbishop of Westminster. Hume's relative youth and inexperience are likely to count negatively with the pragmatic Cardinals...
Smaller powers are more likely to provide viable dark-horse candidates. Despite his age, 73, and his Shermanesque talk of refusing election, Austria's Franz Cardinal König remains a possibility. Spain's Vicente Cardinal Enrique y Tarancon, 71, Archbishop of Madrid, has won a reputation as a courageous, liberalizing leader who declined to officiate at Franco's funeral but pointedly helped to crown King Juan Carlos. In a stalemate, the "Iberian bloc"-Portuguese, Spanish and Latin American votes-could swing behind him. A favorite of many in Latin America and elsewhere is Brazil...