Rev dear Rev: Given that the decision about the next pope will be made by a free vote in a free secret ballot, is there any sign yet of who might have the casting vote for the next dicastery consistory, and whether a kingmaker has emerged yet?

Excellent Instructions about such things as ballots and secret ones appear in the document concerned with this sort of thing from a few years back, called “De Romano Pontifice Eligendo”, in which an absolute majority is required among the consistorial cardinals in order to elect a new pope. No obvious kingmakers have emerged yet this time round, if you recall Cormac when he came over to give a talk on the popes he had known he was regarded as a kingmaker and a decisive one during the Francesco final vote, but none emerging yet with any strength, except maybe the American cardinale, Ray C Burke. This chiefly because he was quite alone in spotting doctrinal infelicities in chapter 8 of the encyclical Amoris Laetitia but still has exercised rights of conscience after the Four Dubia Letter and above all considerations, has shown himself to be without ambition unlike many others - a holy candidate of course too and a good one being a man without guile and without unholy secular ambitions for the Holy See, very close to the gospels and their account of Jesus too, but now very much the principal kingmaker of the next consistory vote.