The College of Cardinals is a highly political institution.always has been, always will be..and Pope JP II was a master politican...I believe he favored Ratzinger, and let his wished becoem known in the last years of his Papacy..
Certainly every one of them is aware that they may one day become pope but I wouldn't go so far as to say every one of them wants to be pope.
Seems to me that you are completely leaving out the Holy Spirit.
..and Pope JP II was a master politican...
I agree but I don't think we are thinking along exactly the same lines... the pope has to be prudent and yet radical at that same time while proclaiming and spreading the Faith. Poland was a perfect example of how JPII did this. Liberate the masses from communism so they could live in freedom to worship God. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan wanted the liberation from communism in order to stamp it out and eventually have it topple in Russia, but the dimention of living in freedom in order to worship God wasn't part of their agenda.
oh yeah, you are also leaving out, in the case of Benedict XVI, why he asked to retire to Baveria three times in the past 15 years. Last time was pretty recent, too. Kind of undermines the credibility of the NYPost article.
That's certainly possible. He did keep Cardinal Ratzinger in essentially the number two position for many years knowing that Ratzinger wanted to return to Germany. A well-respected priest I know said that among him and his priest friends it was clear that among the cardinals Ratzinger was head and shoulders above the rest. They also thought, like many of us, that he had no chance of being elected Pope.