It is a matter of historical record that, years before the conclave of 2005 which elected Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI, a group of centre-left European prelates – known as the “Sankt Gallen Group” after the Swiss city where they met – consciously sought a less doctrinaire alternative for the next pope and believed they had found their man in Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina.
Bergoglio did not prevail in 2005, but he ascended to the papacy eight years later at the conclave of 2013.
