Primarily because most of the primates who chose THE Primate have been Italian. Uhhh. The College of Cardinals elect the Pope, most of the Cardinals have been Italian.So perhaps the question should be " Why are so many of the Cardinals Italian?" There have been 217 popes from Italy, 17 from France, 6 from Germany, 3 from Spain, and one each from England, Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Poland. One reason for so many Italians in the 16th into the 18th centuries is the Political-Religious warfare that was going on . As Catholicism and Protestantism retreated and advanced back and forth across Europe, the Papal holdings in Italy (reduced now to the Vatican) became holding ground for Catholicism. ( France had its own internal Political problems, Spain was of course strongly Catholic, but its alliance with the Pope was more one sided from the Spanish point of view, influenced by politics, first against Portugal, then more importantly against the English.) So it didn't seem a good idea to name a Pope from a country that might tomorrow be ruled by Protestants, especially with the way Kings and Cardinals and other "nobility" were all interrelated back then. In more modern times the reason so many Cardinals were Italian had more to do with the way they are chosen. Cardinals aren't really in the 'chain of command', deacon>priest>bishop>archbishop>Pope, to over simplify. There are three categories; Cardinal Bishops, Cardinal Priests, and Cardinal Deacons. There is really no difference in 'authority' between them and has nothing to do with their degree of orders ( whether they are a bishop, priest or deacon, but has to do with how they are chosen. Cardinals appointed from dioceses around the world are made Cardinal Priests, they may be, and usually are, Bishops. A small number of Cardinals Bishops are titular bishops ( in name only) of the six dioceses in the suburbs of Rome subject to the pope as bishop of Rome. A Cardinal Bishop can be a priest, they tend to be Italian. A Cardinal Deacon can be a priest and often is, hardly ever a deacon. After 10 years a Cardinal Deacon can petition to be named a Cardinal Priest. (Confusin' huh?) Cardinal Deacons are chosen from the Roman Curia, administrative, judicial, and executive offices or 'government' of the Vatican and Papal see. Those guys tend to be Italian because of the history of those wars etc. and because of the Vatican's day to day relationship with Roman and Italian government. And of course just due to 'pull', an opening comes up in the Curia, they being mostly being Italian know mostly other Italians and so an Italian gets chosen. When the Pope seeks a new Cardinal he can ask the Curia for opinions. He asks the other Cardinals for likely people. And most of the guys they know the most about are Italian. Comes time to choose a new Pope, the mostly Italian Cardinals know other Italians the best. John Paul has named over a hundred new Cardinals and apparently made a conscious effort to name more non-Italians. He's the first non-Italian Pope since Hadrian VI (1522-1523), a Dutchman. Italy now has 23 of 137 total voters. European cardinals together, including the Italians, have less than half the votes. Cardinals from the developing world make up 38 percent of the electors, most are from Latin America, where half the world’s 1 billion Catholics live. Or it could just be a plot, even a cpnspiracy.

The Pope is pprimarily the Bishop of ROME, which is part of Italy, even if the Vatican is an independent tiny City-State. Culture plays a large part of all our human decisions. Why were all US Prsidents save one WHITE MALE PROTESTANTS, and why was there no BLACKS or JEWS on the Supreme Court until modern times, and then only one of each (and one CATHOLIC (there were one at least in the 19th century!)...now we have had two women before SDOC resigned, five Catholics, one black, the first Moslem in Congress this November. We nearly had a Jew as VP in 2000, and a second Catholic as President, if Florida had some Remedial Math classes in Florida in 2004, and before that if Bobby Kennedy had not been assassinated by an Arab in California! The Catholic Church has had more ethnic diversity in its first 200 years than we do as a nation, and even if women cannot be priests as Catholics, NO institution anywhere in the world hads more women as CEOs than Catholic orders of nuns for health care and higher education, many of whom have Ph Ds, earned doctorates, not like so many "Doctor" pastors of certain denominations who do no do serious academic work for the title.