Does the Holy Spirit choose the Pope? Pope Benedict’s surprising answer

Gavin Ashenden• May 5, 2025

There is an odd but prevalent fascination with the Catholic Church’s claim to miraculous divine intervention.

The dogma of papal infallibility is not well understood, even among some Catholics. There are many people, including Catholics, who seem neither to understand it nor believe it when it is explained to them.

But it fascinates people. The combination of a claim to supernatural intervention and the level of reliance on that intervention provokes strong interest and reaction—particularly when it is misunderstood; perhaps especially so.

And so, when it comes to the Conclave, there is an implicit assumption that if the Pope can be infallible (in whatever way that is claimed), then surely the election of the Pope must be equally infallible?

If one understands the dogma of infallibility in the simple and restricted way that the Church actually teaches it, then of course this does not follow.

But it might be thought to follow, or people might want it to follow. And so the question emerges: “Surely the Holy Spirit chooses the next pope?”

At the lowest level of expectation, if the papacy is so important, and if the office is so central to the health and life of the Church, it is the very least people might hope or expect.

One helpful source in examining this expectation is the late Pope Benedict XVI.

While still Cardinal Ratzinger, he was asked by Bavarian television in 1997 exactly that question:

“Is the Holy Spirit responsible for the election of a pope?”

His reply might surprise some:

“I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the Pope… I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather, like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense—not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined… There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!”

The most helpful word in this explanation may be “control.” Prayer and magic are often confused. There is a natural human attraction to magic, in part because its central idea is control. In a world filled with uncertainty, control becomes a deeply attractive idea. There are things we want to be protected from, and things we want to happen. It is all too easy to confuse prayer with magic. But prayer is not about control—it is the opposite. It is an act of surrender. It requires the surrender of our own will and the invocation of “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”

In his description of the dynamics of prayer, Pope Benedict uses the analogy of a good educator. The educator offers to teach, show, provide insight and wisdom. But, just as you can lead a horse to water but cannot make it drink, so the Holy Spirit offers himself to the Church—but with preconditions. The first is that one prays. Prayer in practice is much harder than talking about it. It involves the sacrifice of time, the surrender of will, an abandonment of control, and the preferring of the slow, still, small voice. It also involves triangulation with the prayers of others.

In the highly politicised atmosphere of a papal election—when so much energy is spent on canvassing, persuading, negotiating, dissembling and organising—any act of surrender runs counter to the fast-flowing tide of energy harnessed for the vote.

Discerning the will of God is not easy. We pray “Thy will be done” several times each day, but it never becomes easier to engage in the effort of discernment—of telling the difference between my will and Thy will.

Benedict’s notion of elasticity is wise and compelling. It combines the light touch of love with the firm grip of connection. God will never let us go, never abandon us—but nor will He control us if we choose to wander. Benedict reassures us that God will not allow the Church to be utterly ruined. But He will allow us the scope to spoil it by our own wilfulness if we insist. How else do we explain the existence of some very poor popes who did great damage to the Church? How else do we explain the schism of Avignon?

As St Paul reminds us, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. It is the nature of God’s rescue mission that He can take the mess we make and reconfigure it into material for renewal, forgiveness and hope.

The Holy Spirit will whisper His preference into the ears of the cardinals as they sleep, eat, walk and pray. But just as the Children of Israel, having grown weary of prophets, demanded a king to imitate the nations around them, so too will God lengthen the elastic if the Church insists on imposing its own preferences over His invitation.

Christ’s promise to Peter was that evil would not prevail against His Church. Not that it could not spoil, corrupt, confuse or disturb. But history shows that whenever the Church slips into corruption, God raises up saints and renews it afresh.

And the prayers of 1.4 billion Catholics are a great help to the 133 cardinals wearing out their knees for us over the next four days. Orémus.

Photo: Pilgrims and tourists view a statue of Pope Pius IX inside the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore which Pope Francis has visited the fifth-century papal basilica over 100 times, where he prays in front of the icon of ‘Maria Salus Populi Romani’.(Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)