The current pope (Francis) is from Argentina, making him the first pope to be from South America and the first pope from the Southern Hemisphere. The next several Popes have likely already been born. In which continent will the first Pope born after 2024-04-03 18:50:00+00 be born?
Respectfully modified from @Bayesian's excellent market: https://manifold.markets/Bayesian/on-which-continent-will-the-next-po, in turn respectfully modified from @strutheo's excellent market:
1,000People are also trading
@Predictor it's way more interesting than all the sports questions. It probably won't resolve while this site still exists, but it's a good proxy for where the center of Christianity will be in the future.
Most popes have been from Europe. Yet, the percentage of Catholics being born in Europe is decreasing at an astronomical rate. The great theologians, writers and leaders of the future are very unlikely to be mostly European. The only way you can viably believe that the leadership of the Church will stay predominantly European is if you think the church will appease its European minority. I think this is unlikely because the buying power of Africa and Asia will likely be more than Europe in the near future. Moreover, with Vatican II and the current papacies subtle pushes against traditionalism (i.e restrictions on TLM) its clear that already the largely European Vatican is perfectly willing to annoy a loud western minority for the sake of the larger Church.