I find the whole papal election gig fascinating and weird in equal measure.

It’s a ritual punctuated by traditional habits, but nun are worth mentioning.

Apart from perhaps the hysteria that follows the appearance of white smoke. It’s not as if the world stops spinning on its axis during the interregnum. At some stage, a person is always going to be anointed top dog, so all this screaming and crying crud has more than just a scant whiff of Beatlemania to it.

As if to test the theory of gormless groupthink, some bonkers monk went feral in 1958 and sent up a few wonky signals that set off a Mexican wave of puckered rings through the assembled ranks of the unswerving faithful.

Since 2005, Snoop Dogg has in fact been retained to ensure that white smoke of sufficiently copious volume is blown up the stack via the holy bong.

For the black smoke, non-papabile in-a-piss cardinals chuck the odd surplus Donatello onto the log burner. It’s the Vatican equivalent of approaching a destitute wino and sparking up a Habano El Gigante with a high-value bearer bond.

As it happened, it was not a case of ‘long time, no see’.

So what was unfolding in the conclave?

Nothing too spectacular.

A group of senior clergymen, chosen by previous popes, elected a new big cheese. Given the split between ultra-dogmatic conservatives and the more progressive wing – pragmatic conservatives minus the swivel eyes – they often select a compromise candidate.

And that is exactly what happened.

Think about it – the holy father ended up being a quid pro quo. That doesn’t sound like the will of God at work.

And of course it wasn’t.

It was the result of senior managers bartering over a business appointment. After all, organised religion is a business. It’s not the same as belief in or worship of God.

Far from being a spiritual exercise, the vote is a purely human one, fuelled by earthly self-interest.

They even admit that they don’t like the golden ticket holder to be too young, because that means they will be for too long saddled with the same geezer. Hardly a ringing endorsement discerning the divine selection of the Almighty.

In reality, every pope is kept on a reasonably tight leash by their loose confederation of warring sponsors.

And that’s just how the professional bureaucrats at Religion plc like it.