Top Three Photogenic Cardinals in the Current Conclave

I begin by stating: I realize that this is kind of irreverant.
I then state: I believe that the Holy Spirit will guide the Church in selecting a new and godly leader.

Alrighty then.

Now that that’s out of the way: it’s possible that I was told to compile images of the twelve “favored” Cardinals who might be elected as the next Holy Father. It’s possible that I started an informal poll of which ones were most photogenic. Here I’ll post my top three in alphabetical order. Feel free to comment and vote on which Cardinal you favor, too (even if not listed)!

(Also, I have no personal pictures of these gentlemen. Therefore, all of the images are harvested from the internets).

Cardinal Ouellet was Archbishop of Quebec for a while–so here’s a man from our good ol’ North America.

Apparently he also coordinates the nomination of Latin-rite bishops so he has been working closely with Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican already. Plus, real talk, he has working relationships with many of the men who have been newly elected bishops. So he has connections in Canada, the Vatican, and most of the world’s bishops. Not bad.

As far as pictures go: he has an honest face, no?

Cardinal Schonborn from Vienna.

Fun facts about this guy: he was a student of Pope Benedict XVI before Joseph Ratzinger was named Pope. He also gave the Lenten reflection at Pope John Paul II’s 1996 Lenten Retreat (not bad, right??) and was the main editor of the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Oh, and he was the main editor for the “YouCat” Catechism presented to the youth of the Church at WYD in Madrid. You bet your boots I use my YouCat and that that fact won this guy points! Visually, I think he almost resembles Harrison Ford. This is the face Hollywood would put in the role of “goodly bishop,” eh?

Only 55 and from the Phillipines! And we all know that “Filipino” is code-word for “awesome,” so this one is fun. The Phillipines are largely Catholic and vibrantly so.

As an example, of the three World Youth Days I attended, the largest crowd at any was two million. Two million is a lot of people, guys. Well, the World Youth Day held in the Phillipines housed FIVE MILLION people. I feel like those islands almost sunk. But not really.

Other things: I liked this picture of him wiping a tear from his eye on the day he was ordained a Cardinal. And, when later asked if he thought the next Pope might be from Asia he replied, “I don’t know. Maybe we should ask the Holy Spirit.”
🙂

Oh, and an honorable mention to Cardinal Turkson from Ghana: