CASTELNUOVO DI PORTO, Italy — CASTELNUOVO DI POR- TO, Italy -- A book of numbers at his side, a pendulum in his pocket and his wife upstairs plotting astrological charts, Fabrizio Shamir predicts that the next pope will come from South America.
"I held the pendulum over a map for 30 minutes and it drifted south," said Shamir, known in Italian gossip pages as a numerologist skilled at playing the lottery using the birthdays of saints. "As a man, I think the pope should come from Asia because of all its poverty. But as a professional, my numbers and instincts tell me South America."
Cardinals will enter the Sistine Chapel next week and ask God to guide them in selecting the Roman Catholic Church's 265th pope. In less religiously devout realms, oddsmakers, numerologists and those with supernatural proclivities are following their stars, their hunches and their bookies to predict which name will be announced when white smoke curls from the chapel's chimney.
Rome has been the crosscurrent of the spiritual and the commercial for centuries. The capital of an empire inspired by pagan mythology, the city went through blood, martyrs and fire before the liturgy of Christ was imprinted upon its architecture and soul. The selection of a new pope is a time of reverential anticipation for the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics, but for others it is an ecclesiastical parlor game in which the pages of the Bible mean less than the whisper and wink of a bookmaker.
"The response for papal bets has been brisk, shall we say," said Graham Sharpe, a spokesman for William Hill, a British-based international gambling service. "We've done papal betting before so we've got a reputation for this and there's certainly a demand for it."
The favorite for the new pontiff, according to William Hill, is Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze with 9-4 odds. The agency calculates the Archbishop of Milan, Dionigi Tettamanzi, with 7-2 odds and Honduran Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga at 6 to 1. More distant prospects include German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at 9 to 1 and Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes at 10 to 1. The dark horse, according to other betting firms, is Cardinal George Pell of Australia. His odds of becoming a successor to St. Peter are 139 to 1.
"The new pope is a matter of legitimate speculation," Sharpe said. "One hundred or so people are going to make a decision that will affect the world. It's not something you might call a fun bet, like the one we had last weekend over what the color might be of Camilla's dress" in her wedding to Prince Charles.
