Credit: Reuters | Fantapapa.org
As about 135 cardinals prepare to elect the next pope, thousands of Italians are already doing the same in an online game.
Instead of placing bets on the next pontiff, “Fantapapa” allows users to pick their favourite candidates for an 11-a-side team, playing on Italy’s passion for football and the Church.
The free game, which mimics fantasy football leagues, was launched shortly after Pope Francis’s death on April 21 and hit 60,000 users this week.
“People are intrigued by Vatican power dynamics,” Pietro Pace, one of the game’s founders, said.
“Playing allows them to try to get inside these dynamics and remove some of the mystery that shrouds them,” he told AFP.
It asks players to choose a team of 11 cardinals, including a captain (the “most papable” cardinal) and a goalkeeper (the least likely winner), providing an insight on users’ favourite frontrunners.
In Fantapapa – “papa” is the Italian word for pope – each time a user’s chosen papal candidates are mentioned in the media in Italy and beyond, they score points.
Extra points are allocated if one of the player’s picks is elected, with bonuses for correct guesses on the new pope’s political leaning, language and chosen papal name. The most voted options were Francis, John, Pius, Paul and Leo.
“There are no prizes, it’s just for fun and for the eternal glory,” said Mr Pace, who is an AI architect at Microsoft.
International gambling companies are offering odds on various candidates to succeed Pope Francis when cardinals meet in a secret conclave from May 7.
In Italy, however, gambling platforms are strongly discouraged from taking bets on “papabili”, as the papal contenders are known.
Mr Pace and his co-creator Mauro Vanetti, a video game developer, are anti-gambling activists.
The centuries-old tradition of the conclave should take several days and ends once a two-thirds majority has been achieved, the new pontiff accepts, and white smoke pours out from a chimney above the Sistine Chapel.
“As of [Tuesday], Zuppi is the preferred candidate and, notably, most of the followers on our Instagram profile are women,” Mr Pace told Reuters.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, 69, the archbishop of Bologna and Pope Francis’s peace envoy for Ukraine, is a well-known figure in the country.
He is followed by Pietro Parolin, Luis Antonio Tagle and Pierbattista Pizzaballa – who are all among the bookies’ favourites.
Yet, some dark horses have emerged among the top 10, including Jose Advincula of the Philippines, ranking sixth. He is first in the alphabetical order of cardinals to choose from and thus an easy pick for users rushing to complete their roster.
Seventh is Fabio Baggio, a relatively unknown cardinal, who may be scoring high as he shares the same surname with Roberto Baggio, the Italian football legend.
Mykola Bychok, the Ukrainian archbishop of Melbourne in Australia – currently the world’s youngest cardinal – was the top choice in goal, meaning most players do not believe he will become the next pope.
Outside of Fantapapa, frontrunners are starting to emerge. Cardinal Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, is considered one of the top candidates along with Cardinal Tagle, from the Philippines, who would become the first Asian pope in history.
Cardinal Zuppi and Cardinal Peter Turkson from Ghana, one of Pope Francis’s key advisers, are also top contenders.
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