Papabile is an unofficial Italian term first coined by Vaticanologists and now used internationally in many languages to describe a Roman Catholic man, in practice always a cardinal, who is thought a likely or possible candidate to be electedpope. In Italy the term has become very common and people use it for other analogous situations, too. In some cases the cardinals will choose a papabile candidate. Among the papabili cardinals who have been elected pope are Eugenio Pacelli, Giovanni Battista Montini, and Joseph Ratzinger. However, at times the College of Cardinals elects a man who was not considered papabile by most Vatican watchers. In recent years those who were elected pope though not considered papabile include John XXIII, John Paul I, and John Paul II. There is a saying among Vaticanologists: "He who enters the conclave as pope, leaves it as a cardinal." This is a popular proverb in Italy as well, indicating one should never be too sure of oneself. The list of papabili changes as cardinals age. For instance, Carlo Maria Martini was thought to be papabile until he retired from his see upon reaching 75 years of age. In Italian, the wordpapabile is also used in non-Church contexts referring to short list candidates, i.e. those who, among the available candidates, are most likely to get elected or appointed to a specific position.
Being seen as papabile, however, is no guarantee of election, and is sometimes seen as a handicap.
Giuseppe Siri was widely expected to be elected pope in the 1958 and 1963 conclaves and continued to be a prime contender in both 1978 conclaves. On the first of these occasions, Angelo Roncalli, an utterly unexpected choice, was elected and became Pope John XXIII.
Giovanni Benelli was widely expected to be elected pope in both the August and October 1978 conclaves. In fact he was defeated in both. In August, a candidate few saw as papabile, Albino Luciani, was elected and became Pope John Paul I–with the support of Benelli himself. In October, another such candidate, Karol Wojtyła, was elected as John Paul II.
Rafael Merry del Val was a widely considered candidate during the conclaves of 1914 and 1922 which eventually elected Benedict XV and Pius XI respectively, although he never garnered enough votes to be in serious contention.
Carlo Maria Martini – Jesuit, biblical exegete, Archbishop of Milan from 1980 to 2002. Considered to be the most likely successor to John Paul II for much of the 1980s and 1990s but was already suffering from Parkinson's disease by the time the 2005 papal conclave was convened.
Francis Arinze – speculated by some media reports as a highly favoured successor to John Paul II but did not gain a substantial number of votes in the 2005 papal conclave.
The following cardinals, as noted in the cited references, were also considered papabili at the 2013 conclave, which elected Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who took the name Francis.
Pope John Paul I predicted Cardinal Wojtyła – the future John Paul II – would succeed him, and Cardinal Jean-Marie Villot predicted in May 1978 that only Wojtyła could gain the support of two-thirds of the cardinal electors, but was not widely considered papabile because he was not Italian.
