Guesses about who the following Roman Catholic pope will probably be usually show inaccurate. Earlier than the number of Pope Francis in 2013, many bookmakers had not even counted him among the many front-runners.
This time, predictions are additional sophisticated, as a result of Francis made many appointments in a comparatively brief interval throughout his tenure, diversifying the School of Cardinals and making it more durable to determine actions and factions inside the group.
Nonetheless, dialogue of potential names started way back behind the Vatican’s partitions and past. Because the cardinals started assembly in Rome after Pope Francis’ funeral, papal watchers scrutinized snippets of statements rising from their discussions, making an attempt to discern whether or not the electors have been leaning towards a candidate who would construct on Francis’ agenda or one who would characterize a return to a extra conventional fashion.
Cardinals Pietro Parolin of Italy and Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle of the Philippines have been essentially the most talked about candidates to interchange Pope Francis within the days earlier than the conclave, which begins Wednesday. However conclaves are sometimes unpredictable, and this one — with so many new cardinals from so many locations who have no idea one another effectively — has much more potential to shock. A protracted record of different contenders has already emerged.
Pietro Parolin
Plainly everybody is aware of Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state below Francis. Cardinal Parolin will preside over the papal election and has emerged as a number one compromise candidate.
A quiet, plodding Italian with a famously inscrutable poker face, Cardinal Parolin, 70, is deeply cautious. However at a time of worldwide upheaval, that isn’t essentially a disqualifier. Even his backers grant that he lacks Francis’ charisma and international symbolism — however because the chief of the Vatican equipment for the previous decade, he enacted Francis’ imaginative and prescient.
Cardinals have talked about Cardinal Parolin as somebody who may have a gentle, bureaucratic hand on the church’s wheel. His critics on the left query his previous feedback about same-sex marriage, which he known as a “defeat for humanity,” and his lack of pastoral expertise. His critics on the suitable criticize his position within the church’s efforts to make inroads in China, which has required negotiations with Communist leaders.
However few prelates who know him have robust emotions about him both approach. And after the eventful and, for some, divisive dozen years below Francis, bland however competent could also be simply what the cardinals are on the lookout for.
On migration, for instance, whereas Francis excoriated the inhumanity of nice powers turning the Mediterranean right into a graveyard, Cardinal Parolin mentioned after a gathering with Italy’s right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, that immigration was “a really, very advanced topic.”
— Jason Horowitz and Patricia Mazzei
Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle
Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle, 67, a liberal-leaning cardinal from the Philippines, has for years been deemed a front-runner to be pope and can be the primary pope from Southeast Asia.
An ally of Francis who has labored on the Vatican lately, Cardinal Tagle has a extremely personable strategy in keeping with Francis’ consideration to the poor and people in want in creating international locations.
He additionally comes from a area of the world the place Catholicism continues to develop, and the place Francis paid particular attention to trying to build a church with a less Eurocentric future.
On the Vatican, Cardinal Tagle has overseen missionary work. Broadly recognized by his nickname “Chito,” he’s usually known as the “Asian Francis” for his skill to attach with the poor, his name for motion towards local weather change and his criticism of the “harsh” stance adopted by some Catholic clerics towards homosexual folks, divorced folks and unwed moms. Cardinal Tagle is fashionable for his humility, and his homilies have drawn the trustworthy to the pews and to Fb streams.
However as chief of the church within the Philippines, he was criticized by activists and fellow clergymen as being timid concerning the scourge of clerical sexual abuse. He has additionally been faulted by some as not adequately addressing former President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug warfare, wherein tens of thousands of people were summarily executed. Cardinal Tagle didn’t reply to a request for an interview.
— Sui-Lee Wee and Aie Balagtas See
Fridolin Ambongo
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, 65, the archbishop of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been thought of a potential contender since Francis made him a cardinal in 2019.
Pope Francis had lengthy urged the Catholic Church to “go to the peripheries,” which means communities in Africa and Asia, the place the church is also essentially the most vibrant. One persistent query has been when the church would possibly reinforce that dedication by selecting a pope from Africa. Catholics make up about 18 % of the continent’s inhabitants and generate extra seminarians than another a part of the world.
Pope Francis, an Argentine, was the primary non-European to steer the church since 741. Even so, Francis was from a household with Italian roots.
But there’s a sure paradox concerned in selecting any successor from Africa. Whereas it could be a break from custom, the Catholic hierarchy in Africa is among the many most conservative.
Cardinal Ambongo was near Pope Francis, one in every of simply 9 members of an advisory group often called the Council of Cardinals. However the cardinal led the opposition to Francis’ 2023 ruling that clergymen may bless same-sex {couples}.
— Neil MacFarquhar
Anders Arborelius
Bishop Anders Arborelius of Stockholm, 75, who transformed to Catholicism at age 20, is Sweden’s first Catholic cardinal.
Though Sweden was as soon as predominantly Lutheran and is now largely secular, the Roman Catholic Church has grown there in recent years, and Cardinal Arborelius says that most of the Catholics there have an immigrant background. Francis’ elevation of the cardinal in 2017 was seen as one other try and appoint cardinals in locations that didn’t have one earlier than, and to succeed in out to international locations the place Catholics are a minority.
In a current interview, Cardinal Arborelius mentioned the largest challenges dealing with the church have been constructing bridges in a polarized world, giving higher affect to girls inside the church and serving to households move on the religion.
Cardinal Arborelius, who belongs to the Carmelite spiritual order, has expressed help for migrants, as Francis did. Within the interview, he expressed deep concern about rising anti-migrant sentiments, together with in Sweden. As for the blessings of same-sex {couples}, he mentioned, “We have now to go to the homosexual folks with a lot love,” including, “even when we can’t acknowledge homosexual marriage.”
He performed down his possibilities of turning into pope. At 75, “I’d be too outdated,” he mentioned. He mentioned he was instructed that, in response to an A.I. chatbot, his probabilities have been 5 %. “I needed to giggle,” he mentioned.
— Emma Bubola
Jean-Marc Aveline
Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, 66, from Marseille in France, has spent years selling dialogue amongst faiths within the port metropolis, which is understood for its various cultures and religions however can also be stricken by poverty and crime.
Having a background in interreligious dialogue not solely was vital to Francis but additionally has develop into an vital space for the Catholic Church.
Amongst candidates, Cardinal Aveline can be a much less apparent alternative. Working in his favor: He mixes Francis’ openness to dialogue with deep theological data. Presumably working towards him: Conclaves haven’t been heat to French candidates because the 14th century, when a French pope moved the papacy to Avignon within the south of France.
He had an excellent relationship with Francis and shared a equally easy private fashion; he has been recognized to do his personal laundry and likes to drive his personal automotive.
In contrast to Francis, Cardinal Aveline has kept away from overtly taking stands on contentious points inside the church, such because the blessing of homosexual {couples} or giving communion to divorced folks, each of which Francis allowed. Each detractors and supporters describe Cardinal Aveline as embracing “traditional” positions on church doctrine.
— Emma Bubola
Charles Maung Bo
Cardinal Charles Maung Bo is well-known and influential amongst Asian leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. He has employed a fragile diplomatic contact because the chief of a Catholic minority in Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist nation.
The archbishop of Yangon, he turned Myanmar’s first cardinal in 2015. And as his conflict-torn nation’s most distinguished Roman Catholic, he has been an outspoken spiritual chief, calling for peace and dialogue since a navy coup in 2021.
The cardinal has additionally defended Myanmar’s persecuted Muslim Rohingya folks, a extremely delicate subject there.
He has described the Rohingya as victims of “ethnic cleaning,” however he additionally advised Pope Francis earlier than the pontiff’s 2017 go to to Myanmar to keep away from utilizing the phrase Rohingya. It’s a contested time period in Myanmar, and the cardinal mentioned he feared backlash towards the nation’s Catholics if Francis uttered it.
Cardinal Bo, 76, has additionally reprimanded the worldwide group for inaction over the persecution of Uyghur Muslims in China.
— Patricia Mazzei
Pablo Virgilio Siongco David
Cardinal Pablo Virgilio Siongco David, 66, from the Philippines is taken into account an outdoor contender to succeed Pope Francis.
Consultants say that whereas Cardinal Tagle, additionally from the Philippines, has attracted extra consideration, Cardinal David’s barely decrease profile would possibly assist, at the same time as his relative youth may depend towards him.
Shortly after being appointed bishop in Manila in 2015, the prelate was confronted with troublesome decisions when a wave of executions by law enforcement officials and vigilantes hit his diocese.
The killings have been set off by the marketing campaign by Mr. Duterte, then the president, to eliminate illegal drugs, and the local weather of violence that prevailed made staying quiet a safer alternative. As an alternative, the bishop, who was elevated to cardinal in December, started protecting an inventory of these killed in his diocese, arrange mission stations to supply support to locals and publicly denounced the killings.
In an effort to speak Catholic instructing extra successfully to put folks as bishop, he arrange a weekly present on YouTube. He additionally recurrently took half in group efforts to wash up native rivers, partly to point out that Catholic leaders shouldn’t be cloistered in positive buildings.
— Matthew Mpoke Bigg
Peter Erdo
Cardinal Peter Erdo of Hungary, 72, an skilled on canon legislation, is anticipated to be a front-runner amongst cardinals who lengthy for a return to the conservatism of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
He has spoken out towards permitting divorced Catholics to obtain communion, for instance. However Hungarians who’ve labored with him say he’s much less doctrinaire than some followers consider.
Recognized for his diplomatic abilities and command of a number of languages, he has constructed bridges with Catholic leaders in Latin America and Africa and reached out to Hungary’s Jewish group.
However he has devoted most of his profession to scholarship and has had little direct expertise coping with the day-to-day issues of churchgoers, which may work towards him because the church tries to reverse a drift towards secularism throughout Europe.
Cardinal Erdo has usually prevented intervening in Hungary’s polarized politics however dismayed liberal-minded Hungarian Catholics by failing to defend Francis towards a marketing campaign of abuse by the media machine of Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, throughout Europe’s migration disaster.
— Andrew Higgins
Fernando Filoni
Cardinal Fernando Filoni, 79, is a seasoned Vatican diplomat who might finest be recognized for his position because the Holy See’s envoy to Iraq, the place he refused to go away as bombs started to fall through the American-led invasion in 2003.
As an Italian multilingual diplomat, Cardinal Filoni is seen as a potential candidate for pope partially due to his prolonged and high-profile service abroad. He has served in Sri Lanka, Iran, Brazil, Jordan and Hong Kong, the place he lived whereas he was the Vatican’s official envoy to the Philippines, and was additionally liable for the Vatican’s relationship with China.
Cardinal Filoni was near each John Paul II and Benedict XVI, however analysts advised that Pope Francis appeared to not favor him.
Due to his worldwide expertise and position overseeing missions, the cardinal got here into the conferences that preceded this week’s conclave to pick out Francis’ successor realizing lots of his fellow electors.
Cardinal Filoni has not overseen a parish or a diocese, roles which are often thought of vital stipulations for a pope. However Vatican consultants have praised his dedication to his diplomatic work. He was one of many few high-profile Western figures to stay in Iraq through the warfare. He turned a witness to the facility cuts, kidnappings, murders, declining well being care and failing infrastructure that affected the residents of the nation, and he was seen as a protector of minority Christians there.
If chosen, Cardinal Filoni would seemingly serve a shorter time as pope, observers say, and will permit youthful cardinals time to mature and be thought of for the highest job.
— Motoko Wealthy
Mario Grech
Cardinal Mario Grech, 68, comes from Malta, an archipelago within the Mediterranean with a comparatively small inhabitants.
Nonetheless, the cardinal — the previous bishop of the Maltese island of Gozo — has emerged as a candidate for pope due to his position as secretary normal of the Synod of Bishops, a Vatican physique that considers “questions pertaining to the exercise of the church on the earth.”
Pope Francis made the newest synod way more inclusive and participatory, and Cardinal Grech’s position in stewarding these efforts to open up the church stand in distinction to a few of his personal historical past. Whereas he was bishop of Gozo, from 2005 to 2020, he held conservative stances on a number of points, together with homosexuality and the legalization of divorce, which he opposed when Malta held a referendum in 2011.
He modified his tone below Francis, a progressive, and the cardinal is now seen as somebody who would carry continuity to the papacy.
At a time when many cardinals are new and never effectively acquainted with each other, Cardinal Grech would possibly profit from his dealings on the Synod, the place he met dozens of them in individual. He has additionally taken up international causes that have been near Francis. Malta is a key level of entry within the Mediterranean for migrants arriving from Africa, and Cardinal Grech has known as on Europe to open its doorways, not shut them.
Like different senior church leaders over the past 20 years, Cardinal Grech has been accused by a few of not doing sufficient to reckon with sexual abuse that befell in his diocese. Cardinal Grech didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
— Elisabetta Povoledo
Claudio Gugerotti
Vatican officers have talked about Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti as a possible kingmaker within the conclave to decide on a brand new pope because of his ties to church buildings and influential figures world wide.
Cardinal Gugerotti, 69, is Italian and speaks Armenian, English, Greek, Kurdish and Russian. In recent times, he led the Vatican workplace that oversees the Jap Catholic Church buildings, 23 self-governing our bodies, primarily in Jap Europe, which have their very own liturgy and traditions.
After years of working in Rome, he additionally is aware of his approach across the Vatican.
Regardless of his connections, some Vatican observers consider his candidacy is a protracted shot since he has by no means served in a pastoral position as a bishop. Pastoral expertise is broadly seen as a prerequisite for turning into pope, particularly after Francis put it on the heart of his preach.
Cardinal Gugerotti is aware of the previous Soviet area effectively, which has been particularly vital in church diplomacy since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He has served as papal envoy in former Soviet republics like Belarus and Georgia and, in 2015, took on that place for Ukraine.
Some Ukrainians who’ve handled him have mentioned that he has not achieved sufficient to make it clear, amid requires peace, that Russia was the aggressor within the warfare. Cardinal Gugerotti didn’t reply to a request for remark for this text.
— Matthew Mpoke Bigg
José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça
Cardinal José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça, 59, wouldn’t the primary poet to develop into pontiff ought to he be chosen: There have been a number of in historical past, together with Leo XIII, who in 1887 revealed poems in Latin, and John Paul II, who penned poems all through his life.
However Cardinal de Mendonça’s poetry has acquired a number of literary prizes in his native Portugal, and when Francis gave him his crimson cardinal hat in 2019, he instructed him, “You are the poetry.” He’s additionally a biblical scholar; he’s effectively regarded in mental circles outdoors the Roman Catholic world and he’s well-known internationally.
The 2 males first met in 2017, and Francis known as him to Rome in 2018 to be the archivist and librarian of the Vatican Library, a publish he held for 4 years. In 2022, Francis named him the Vatican’s tradition chief, and in that position he was behind a number of initiatives reaffirming the church’s dedication to artwork and its need for dialogue with the modern world.
In that spirit, he introduced worldwide artists and comedians — together with these recognized to be controversial — to satisfy with Francis on the Vatican. His workplace was additionally concerned in drafting a document, revealed in January, that warned about the potential for “the shadow of evil” in synthetic intelligence, which it mentioned provided “a supply of large alternatives but additionally profound dangers.”
He’s thought of to have been near Francis, and his papacy would almost certainly be one in every of continuity. He has been supportive of outreach to L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics, and a few conservatives have been vital of him.
— Elisabetta Povoledo
Seán P. O’Malley
Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley is the not too long ago retired archbishop of Boston.
Certainly one of Pope Francis’ trusted allies, he took over the archdiocese of Boston in 2003 when the sexual abuse disaster was erupting within the Catholic Church, changing Cardinal Bernard Regulation, who resigned after revelations that he had protected abusive clergymen for years. Cardinal O’Malley led the area via a painful interval of rebuilding and reform earlier than stepping down from the position final yr.
In some methods, he’s a long-shot candidate. At age 80, he’s too outdated to vote for the following pope, and the voting cardinals nearly all the time select their successor from amongst their very own ranks. As well as, the prospect of an American pope’s being elected is broadly thought unlikely.
However Cardinal O’Malley is understood to be revered throughout political divides. He was made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006, and a month after his election in 2013, Pope Francis included him as the one American in an interior circle of counselors. Pope Francis additionally made him a pacesetter of the Vatican’s workplace on sexual abuse, and he was an adviser within the reform of the Vatican paperwork.
At a second when questions of American energy, within the church and worldwide, fear many church leaders in different elements of the world, Cardinal O’Malley can also be seen as globally minded whereas nonetheless understanding the sophisticated dynamics of the American church. He speaks at the least eight languages fluently and is a Capuchin Franciscan friar recognized for carrying his behavior as an expression of humility.
Gentle-spoken and but authoritative, Cardinal O’Malley is understood for talking out not solely towards abortion but additionally towards gun violence, and he has known as repeatedly for a ban on assault weapons.
— Elizabeth Dias
Pierbattista Pizzaballa
Though Pierbattista Pizzaballa, 60, turned a cardinal solely in 2023, his expertise within the Center East, one of many world’s most heated battle zones, helped him rise to prominence.
Within the days after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the cardinal, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, provided himself up as a hostage in change for the liberty of kids who had been kidnapped to Gaza. The supply, reported by Vatican News, the Holy See’s information portal, was not taken up, however it nonetheless drew consideration to him.
As an Italian, Cardinal Pizzaballa would carry the papacy again below the management of a rustic that dominated it for hundreds of years, after a niche of virtually 50 years.
However Cardinal Pizzaballa is seen as a Vatican outsider, on condition that he has spent a long time within the Center East reasonably than constructing alliances nearer to residence. Some cardinals and different members of the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy are additionally involved that Cardinal Pizzaballa could also be too younger for the job.
His reverence for conventional components of church apply has made him palatable to some conservatives. However his positions on many points which have induced division within the church aren’t recognized.
— Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Isabel Kershner
Robert Francis Prevost
There has by no means been a pope from the US, and the traditional knowledge stays that any American can be a protracted shot.
But one American who some Vatican watchers say may scrape collectively sufficient votes is Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, 69, a Chicago-born polyglot who’s seen as a churchman who transcends borders. He served for 20 years in Peru, the place he turned a bishop and a naturalized citizen. He then rose to steer his worldwide spiritual order. Till the dying of Pope Francis, he held one of the influential Vatican posts, operating the workplace that selects and manages bishops globally.
The cardinal, who’s a member of the Order of St. Augustine, resembles Francis in his dedication to the poor and migrants. Typically described as reserved and discreet, Cardinal Prevost would depart stylistically from Francis. His supporters say he would almost certainly proceed the consultative course of began by Francis to ask lay folks to satisfy with bishops.
It’s unclear whether or not he can be as open to homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics as Francis was. Though he has not mentioned a lot not too long ago, in a 2012 deal with to bishops, he lamented that Western information media and fashionable tradition fostered “sympathy for beliefs and practices which are at odds with the Gospel.” He cited the “gay way of life” and “various households comprised of same-sex companions and their adopted youngsters.”
The cardinal, like many others, has drawn criticism over his dealings with clergymen accused of sexual abuse. Makes an attempt to succeed in the cardinal weren’t profitable.
— Motoko Wealthy
Joseph W. Tobin
Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin is the archbishop of Newark, which has one of the ethnically various archdioceses in America.
When Pope Francis named him a cardinal in 2016, he was the primary to carry the publish in Newark, throughout the Hudson River from New York Metropolis in New Jersey. He changed an archbishop who refused communion to politicians who supported abortion rights and who additionally failed to ensure {that a} priest who was convicted of kid sexual abuse would haven’t any entry to youngsters.
Cardinal Tobin is understood for his help of ladies, homosexual folks and immigrants. His views have been formed after working as a parish priest, after which spending years touring the world as chief of his spiritual order, the Redemptorists.
Pope Benedict introduced him to the Vatican to assist lead the workplace that oversees spiritual orders, however after he defended nuns who have been being investigated by the Vatican for inadequate adherence to orthodoxy, he was despatched to Indianapolis to function its archbishop. There, in 2016, he insisted that the church would proceed to resettle Syrian refugees even after Mike Pence, then the governor of Indiana, tried to dam the transfer.
He has proven help for the thought of ladies turning into deacons and said that he didn’t see “a compelling theological motive why the pope couldn’t identify a lady cardinal.”
— Elizabeth Dias
Peter Turkson
A couple of years in the past, Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana was on many shortlists to be the following pope.
He was thought of a favourite within the 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis, and he labored intently with the pontiff on main points. However his star dimmed after Francis accepted his resignation from operating a serious church workplace.
Cardinal Turkson, 76, remains to be thought of among the many most distinguished African cardinals who may proceed Francis’ imaginative and prescient on social justice, financial equality and the surroundings. However he’s now given solely an outdoor shot.
In a 2017 overhaul of the Vatican paperwork, Francis stored him on as the top of the workplace for Selling Integral Human Growth, which turned a bigger and extra empowered division. The workplace adopted social justice, migration and environmental points key to Francis’ agenda and was thus seen as central. Cardinal Turkson represented the Vatican on the highest ranges world wide, together with on the United Nations.
However an investigation into the workplace’s governance and operations was quickly adopted by Cardinal Turkson’s resignation. Cardinal Turkson framed it merely as the top of his time period, however some Vatican observers took it as a detrimental judgment on his administration skill.
Born right into a household of 10 youngsters with a once-Methodist mom and a Muslim paternal uncle, he mentioned he realized interfaith dialogue at residence, and he went on to check in seminaries in Ghana and New York. A speaker of six languages, in response to a Vatican profile, Cardinal Turkson studied in Rome for a doctorate in scripture research. He climbed the ranks, turned an archbishop below John Paul II and headed up a Vatican workplace below Benedict XVI.
— Jason Horowitz
Matteo Zuppi
Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi of Italy, 69, stands out among the many contenders who replicate Francis’ view that the church must be consultant of and help the poor. Francis promoted this progressive native of Rome to the rank of cardinal in 2019 and assigned him a number of vital missions.
Cardinal Zuppi is intently tied to Sant’Egidio, a Catholic group recognized for its service to the poor and battle decision.
Vatican watchers say the group turned an more and more vital foyer below Francis, however that hyperlink has additionally raised issues that, if elected pope, he can be overly influenced by the group.
In 2015, Francis named him archbishop of Bologna, one of the vital posts in Italy. There, Don Matteo, as he’s recognized, continued to work with poor folks and migrants. “Welcoming migrants is a historic problem for Europe,” he has mentioned. “Christ invitations us to not flip away.” And lately, Francis appointed Cardinal Zuppi to the important thing position of envoy for Ukraine issues.
He has additionally been welcoming to L.G.B.T. Catholics, writing the preface for the Italian version of the Rev. James Martin’s 2017 e-book, “Constructing a Bridge,” which known as for the church to seek out new pastoral methods of ministering to homosexual folks.
— Elisabetta Povoledo
April 22, 2025
:
An earlier model of this text misstated the place Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi is from. He’s a local of Rome, not Bologna.
April 23, 2025
:
An earlier model of this text referred incorrectly to the geographic background of earlier popes. Luis Antonio Tagle, a cardinal from the Philippines, can be the primary pope from Southeast Asia, however not Asia as a complete.
