ROME, Italy – Vatican watchers had considered the possibility of a black pope long before Barack Obama stepped into the limelight announcing his candidacy. When it comes to a black cardinal who could be pope, one name that Vatican watchers often float is that of Francis Arinze of Nigeria, the only African who currently holds a top job in the Curia, as the Vatican's government is called.

When in April 2005 cardinals met in the Sistine Chapel to elect John Paul II's successor there was not just talk, but real hope that the first non-Italian pope in centuries would be succeeded by the first African pope.

Yet once again a white man from the first world got the job, and it's been that way for centuries.

Wilfried Cardinal Napier of Durban, South Africa, says that whenever there is a gathering of human beings you are going to find a degree of discrimination. "It might not be as obvious, it might not be even consciously done" he told me, but there is a perception that "candidates from that part [Africa], they haven't got a long tradition, so how could they possibly move up the line?"

In fact one of the first popes 1,800 years ago is believed to be from Africa. Victor I is often credited with being the first black pope, although historians disagree whether he was black or even born in Africa.

In the early 60s there was hardly a black cardinal; today there are 17 of them.

Catholicism has grown faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world and today 13 percent of the world's Catholic population lives in Africa.

So what's stopping the next pope from being a black man?

Well first of all popes serve for life, and talks of a papal successor are premature at best. Secondly most analysts and even some African cardinals admit that should the next pope come from the developing world he would probably be a Latin American, where half of today's 1.1 billion Catholics live.

Few cardinal agree to comment on the records about a papal successor. But individually they all agree that during papal elections it's neither race nor American politics that matter, but the Holy Spirit.

And HE is really unpredictable.