After pope Francis was elected St Peter’s square gasped. Most of the Italians present expected a Vatican insider or Milan’s Archbishop Angelo Scola to win. Despite all that was said about his chances in the media, truth is Holy See and Italian clergymen, which used to be most of the voters in past conclaves, are now the minority. You can see that in this list of cardinals eligible to vote and where they actually work. The big chunk is the Roman Curia, which manages business in the Catholic church. The other are basically the heads of the biggest dioceses, people who actually have contact with most of the world’s 1,2 billion Catholics.
When it comes to nations, the election of an Italian pope looked just as unlikely from the start. Not only for political reasons (Italy’s political and economical issues surely reflect on the Vatican), but also because the last pontiffs, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, increased foreign participation in the College of Cardinals. Italians were about half of those who elected Pole Karol Wojtila in 1978. They were less than one quarter of the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel when Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio was chosen.
I am a journalist. But that is not my fault, I assure you. I am also from Sao Paulo, Brazil. That is probably my fault.