Hostile Congo regime may be papal candidate’s ideal campaign manager

ROME – In the old days, monarchs and emperors who governed the great Catholic powers of the day claimed what they rather fancifully described as a jus exclusivae, or “right of exclusion,” in papal elections, meaning the power to exercise a veto over a particular candidate.

The last time this right of exclusion was invoked was in 1903, when Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria objected to the possible choice of Cardinal Mariano Rampolla, whom the Austrians regarded as excessively pro-French. As a result...