Cardinals from around the world in the Sistine Chapel March 12, 2013, as they began the conclave to elect a new pope. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters)
VATICAN CITY — A year-ago today, as the world’s cardinals solemnly filed into the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope, news outlets, blogs and betting sites were abuzz with papal prognostications.
I wanted to take an informal stab at it myself using some tips from the U.S. statistician, Nate Silver, who had correctly predicted the outcome of the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
I thought it’d be a fun experiment to apply some of the approaches he had outlined in his book, “The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail — but Some Don’t.”
Here’s what I looked at in the few days before the conclave:
- What were the challenges facing the world and the church in 1978 and 2005?
- What “winning” qualities did Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI — the men who were elected those years — possess?
From there, I drafted a rough list of what church leaders and others were saying in 2013 about the pressing challenges.
Here are just a few examples:
Shut off from the outside world, cardinals from around the world cast ballots to elect a new pontiff in a conclave that began March 12, 2013. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano)
- Religious freedom, oppression in parts of Asia; persecution and violence in the Middle East and Africa; infringements in the western world.
- Secularism and globalization.
- Latin America losing Catholics, Asia growing.
- Church needing to be “attractive,” new evangelization and need to be “outspoken.”
- Making Jesus the center of liturgy, lives, prayer.
- Problem of sex abuse.
- Catechism and solid foundations of faith.
- Attention to young people.
- Orthodoxy, importance of Catholic identity for universities, charities.
- Lapsed Catholics; family; sacraments.
- Vocations.
Then I scribbled down some of the winning qualities that people were looking for and would be needed to face the challenges:
- A spiritual leader (strong prayer life).
- Energy, strength to travel; but how young/old is too young/old?
- Can clean up Curia/problems that make church look bad.
- Makes faith attractive.
- Smart; simple, clear communication.
- Honest, down-to-earth.
- See young people as important.
- Represents the message the church wants to send the world.
- From Asia, Latin America, Africa.
- Charismatic; humble; multilingual.
Cardinals entering the Sistine Chapel in prayer March 12, 2013, as they begin the conclave. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters)
Silver said also to list any biases that might affect the way the data is read. So I listed the common opinion that the pope “not be Italian” and the need for someone “young” or with “strength of mind and body,” as Pope Benedict himself had said.
Then I looked at several cardinals and their lives, and rated them according to how well each man possessed the needed/winning qualities to confront today’s challenges. I calculated what chances they had of winning, of losing, and of having won in the past.
I only had time to look at 14 cardinals out of the 117 electors. But one of those men was Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, whom I gave an 80% chance of winning and a 60% chance of losing (mostly because of his age — he was 76, and lack of languages).
A print-out of cardinal-electors, showing my Nate Silver-inspired stat results on March 12, 2013, for Cardinal Bergoglio’s chances of being elected pope.
But those pretty good percentages put him behind what I had calculated for Pope Francis’ close friend, 70-year-old Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras. I had given him a 90% chance of winning and a 10% chance of losing, noting his focus on the poor, writings on globalization, his strong voice for Latin America, language abilities, courage to “put out into the deep,” his work on sanctity of life; and importance of evoking God in a secular world.
Cardinal Luis Tagle of Manila got the next highest marks with a 90% chance of winning, but a 20% chance of losing (too young) noting the following “winning” qualities: “Asian, rides the bus, humble, Vatican II scholar, has ‘star power,’ intellect,” communicates clearly, with focus on youth.
Window of the Holy Spirit above Bernini’s sculpture, “The Throne of St. Peter,” in St. Peter’s Basilica Feb. 19, 2012. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
The good thing about Silver’s approach is you’re supposed to adjust the percentages as you collect more data and I didn’t have that much time to find out more about Cardinal Bergoglio. Had I known he was another friend of public transport, I would have boosted his Win score up to 85%!
But probably the best lesson Silver offers is to never forget the limitations posed by human nature, our biases and our limited access to all the information out there.
We want to try to predict the future and be sure about what’s going to happen. But, he said we should be more humble about our ability to perceive and predict the world. And then when you add the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit at work, well, then all bets are off!
Filed under: 2008 election, CNS, Conclave, Latin America, Papal transition, Vatican | Comments Off on The conclave guessing game: lessons from a numbers geek
South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier sent several tweets after the election of Pope Francis beginning with the March 14 message about the pope’s choice of name, quoting him: “I shall be called Francis, in memory of St Francis of Assisi!”
