2025 Papal Conclave: South America

 The region is home to the largest Catholic national on earth: Brazil, and Brazil will have 7 cardinals at the conclave.  Just considering South American proper, there are 17 cardinals traveling to Rome to participate in the selection of the next Pope.  The likelihood that one of them or another individual from South America will be selected on the heels of Pope Francis I, an Argentinian, are slim.  None of the pre-show prognosticators have identified anyone from the region on their shortlists.  Still there are some very interesting Cardinals out there.

Of the Brazilians, Cardinal Paulo Cezar Costa is the youngest from the entire region at 57, and is the Archbishop of Brasilia.  Cardinal Sérgio da Rocha of São Salvador da Bahia is perhaps the most progressive of the Cardinals gaining notoriety back in 2021 when he celebrated a Mass for "all the Victims of Transphobia".  Although Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich Steiner who is the first Cardinal ever from the interior Amazonian city of Manaus has long held that reputation throughout the region.

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez of Argentina is a Pope Francis I protegee whom Francis brought to Rome over a decade ago to act as his ghost writer.  Another interesting Cardinal is Carlos Castillo Mattasoglio of Lima, Peru.  Cardinal Mattasoglio is a proponent of that Latin American Chestnut, Liberation Theology.  But no one is predicting a new Pope from South America, and we may never know the influence that these Cardinals will express in the selection of the man who does.