Re: How are new Popes chosen?
The Pope is chosen by the Electoral College of Cardinals. Each Cardinal gets only one vote, even though some of them have very large congregations while others are small.
For some time now, the people in the large congregations (the Blue Churches) have been trying to abolish the Electoral College of Cardinals because they think that it is unfair, and the Pope should be elected by popular vote. While there are a smaller number of Catholics who want to keep this system (the Red Churches), they have more Cardinals, and the system continues. They point out that the only Pope ever elected by popular vote, Pope Chad I, was immediately hung by the Vatican Supreme Court when the Florence Secretary of State invalidated the election results.
As a historical note, a little known plank of John Kerry's platform in 2004 was that it was not fair that only Cardinals got to vote for Pope, and that Red Sox should get to vote too. When reporters asked Teresa Heinz-you-doesn't-have-to-call-me-Kerry to comment on whether Pirates should have a vote also, she told them to shove it.
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