In August 2015, papal advisor Austen Ivereigh mentioned the St. Gallen Mafia in his biography of the Holy Father, The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope. Ivereigh claimed the St. Gallen Mafia was instrumental in Pope Francis' election to the papacy by the College of Cardinals during the 2013 conclave.
Among the alleged members of this secretive group were Belgian Cdl. Godfried Danneels, Dutch Bp. Adriaan Van Luyn, Cdl. Walter Kasper and Cdl. Karl Lehmann from Germany, Cdl. Achille Silvestrini of Italy and British Cdl. Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.
In September, Danneels was promoting his recent biography when he confirmed the existence of the cabal. He said in an interview on video, "'The Saint Gallen Group' is a sort of posh name. But in reality we said of ourselves, and of that group, 'The Mafia.'"
It appears the St. Gallen Group formed in the late 1990s to combat Pope St. John Paul II and then-Cdl. Joseph Ratzinger. At the time, Cdl. Ratzinger was known as one of the closest aids to the Holy Father. The St. Gallen Mafia was an informal group for high-ranking Catholic clergy with radical views, who were afraid that Cdl. Ratzinger would become the next Pope.
The secretive coalition supposedly threw its weight behind then-Cdl. Jorge Bergoglio in the 2005 conclave. They unsuccessfully opposed the election of Cdl. Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI. The St. Gallen Mafia backed Cdl. Bergoglio again at the 2013 conclave after Pope Benedict XVI resigned. Their 2013 campaign was successful, and then-Cdl. Bergoglio became Pope Francis.
(Church Militant)
******Cardinal Walter Kasper was sure about a candidacy of Cardinal Bergoglio only after a meeting of about 15 cardinals on March 11, one day before the 2013 conclave started.
The meeting is mentioned in Gerard O'Connell's book The Election of Pope Francis.
Writing to LifeSiteNews.com (April 29), Kasper stresses that this group would not have been big enough to elect Bergoglio as the new pope and that “there was no networking” during the conclave.
Kasper condemns “stupid suspicions of manipulation" and "conspiracy theories” which have tried to explain Bergoglio's election and stresses that the the St Gallen group spoke about pastoral experiences and perspectives, not about candidates for a future conclave.
He therefore calls Cardinal Danneels remark about a mafia plotting in St Gallen “totally misleading” stating that the group met only until 2006.
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