Pope Benedict's election to the papacy took American diplomats by surprise, it emerged this week.
They predicted that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger would get a flurry of votes from his fellow cardinals at the beginning of the conclave but that he would be unable to muster the support needed to become Pope.
An April 19 2005 telegram from Rome to Washington signed by Bernt Hardt, says diplomats were "shocked" and "speechless" about the election of Cardinal Ratzinger
According to sensitive State Department documents obtained by La Stampa, an Italian newspaper, American diplomats at the US Embassy to the Holy See listed sixteen papabile, or candidates for the papacy on April 18, 2005, the day the conclave following Pope John Paul II's death began.
