Pope election and unanimity

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If God inspires Cardinals to select God’s choice as Pope through an election, why is the vote never unanimous?
 
“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!”
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  • Now Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI
 
I was told by my Priest:

The Cardinals are in the room, no one is running to be elected, it is all my lots.

It would seam to me, for someone in that instance to get a majority of the votes, since no one is running for office, He would have to chosen my the Spirit.
 
Cardinals may not me much better than the rest of us at actually listening to divine guidance . . .

The reason for the “conclave” is quite literal–it means “with key:”, and comes from a couple of incidents when the cardinals lounged around Rome, living the good life, for over a year without electing a pope.

The people of Rome quite literally locked them in a building with a leaky roof, sending in only bread, water, and wine.

The term remains to this day . . .
 
Cruciferi said:
Perhaps this method should be applied to secular government? 🤔
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Just as an interesting aside, there was an episode from the 80s reboot of The Twilight Zone where that more or less occurred. An alien came down to Earth and said his race had put man on Earth. Now all these years later he said man had developed “a small talent for war” and that needed to be corrected… or else. Under threat of annihilation every country worked tirelessly in an incredibly short time to solve various wars and rivalries (e.g. Israel and Palestine), made a plan to eliminate nukes, and put everything in place for world peace.
The twist is it turns out the comment about “a small talent for war” was about Earthlings not knowing how to war effectively, as the humans were put there to be an army to conquer other worlds. It ends with spaceships coming around to end the failed experiment.
 
Cruciferi said:
Perhaps this method should be applied to secular government? 🤔
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For the last century, almost all top political appointments [on the planet Earth] had been made by random computer selection from the pool of individuals who had the necessary qualifications. It had taken the human race several thousand years to realize that there were some jobs that should never be given to the people who volunteered for them, especially if they showed too much enthusiasm. As one shrewed political commentator had remarked: “We want a President who has to be carried screaming and kicking into the White House — but will then do the best job he possibly can, so that he’ll get time off for good behavior.
― Arthur C. Clarke, [Imperial Earth]
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When Matthias was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot as one of the twelve, it was by casting lots. Same idea for the Pope.
 
KevinK said:
If God inspires Cardinals to select God’s choice as Pope through an election, why is the vote never unanimous?
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Because some cardinals want a certain person to be Pope and some cardinals want another person to be Pope.
 
Ultimately a Pope must be chosen by 2/3 of the votes . So…let us say the Holy Spirit at some point has to make Himself be heard louder or they would be locked up there for quite a long time…
 
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Obviously, but for the candidate of God’s choosing to be elected God must obviously intervene to ensure the desired outcome. My question is why bother with dissenting votes and not have a unanimous result on first ballot?
 
Benedict XVI gave a very full, reasoned answer to that question. See @Fauken’s post immediately following your OP.
 
You have a mistaken notion of God’s inspiration in human affairs. The Holy Spirit may inspire a choice, but the cardinal electors do not lose their free will. They must first be open to receiving the inspiration, and then be willing to cooperate. At the end of the day, the cardinal electors choose the pope via their free will.
 
I didn’t like Benedict XVI’s response, it seems ambiguous and like in the end the Holy Spirit doesn’t elect anyone at all.

If he even said that there are popes the Holy Spirit didn’t elect then why reinforce the notion that the Holy Spirit is in the Conclave? I like much more the explanation that bad popes were elected by God to warn us or to fulfil an specific objective within the Church separated from their bad actions.
 
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How does that explain the lack of unanimity? Are the Cardinals who don’t vote for the winning Pope not open to inspiration?
 
I think the right answer is, as God controls the outcome of things, no matter how many Cardinals voted for the lossing candidate, the candidate that wins is the one God has chosen.

It is an old answer, applicable to many situation in theology, but to me it is the one that sound more correct.

My hypothesis to rationalize this is that maybe God influences the discerment of just the right number of Cardinals for them to be the majoritary faction in the Conclave.
 
In a sense, the Holy Spirit chooses every bishop (Acts 20:28 Take heed to yourselves, and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. )

But there no special charism given to those who elect or appoint bishops in the Church, including those who elect the bishop of Rome. However, those elected or appointed possess all the authority, powers, and charisms–as well as the duties and responsibilities–associated with the office they are placed in.
 
Perhaps the elected Pope is not the inspiration. There is no Church teaching that says God selects the pope.
 
KevinK said:
If God inspires Cardinals to select God’s choice as Pope through an election, why is the vote never unanimous?
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Obviously, so the new Pope does not become proud. 😉
 
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KevinK said:
Obviously, but for the candidate of God’s choosing to be elected God must obviously intervene to ensure the desired outcome. My question is why bother with dissenting votes and not have a unanimous result on first ballot?
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Because some cardinals think different Popes are the right person for the job, or maybe they don’t think they’re good for the job at all. There’s been some pretty lousy Popes over the centuries. Even St Peter didn’t have a great start, if the book of Acts is any indication.
 
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