VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Cardinals enter a conclave on Wednesday to choose a new pope, leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics.
The secret election appears wide open but here are some of the names, in alphabetical order, being talked about as possible successors to Pope Francis, who died last month.
CARDINAL JEAN-MARC AVELINE
Aveline, 66, the archbishop of Marseille, is known for his easy-going nature, readiness to crack jokes and ideological proximity to Francis, especially on immigration and relations with the Muslim world. He has a doctorate in theology and a degree in philosophy.
Born in Algeria to a family of Spanish immigrants who moved to France after Algerian independence, he has lived most of his life in Marseille, a port city that has been a crossroads of cultures and religions for centuries.
Under Francis, Aveline became bishop in 2013, archbishop in 2019 and a cardinal three years later. His standing was boosted in September 2023 when he organised an international Church conference on Mediterranean issues attended by Pope Francis.
Aveline would become the first French pope since the 14th century and the youngest pope since John Paul II.
CARDINAL CHARLES MAUNG BO
Charles Maung Bo, 76, broke new ground in 2015 when Pope Francis appointed him as the first Catholic cardinal from Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
In an interview with the Vatican News website after Francis died, he praised the late pope for reaching out to vulnerable and marginalised people.
“His papacy embodied a living parable – a witness to a Church that must not reside in palaces while the world languishes outside its gates,” he said.
However, Bo is a somewhat divisive figure at home – even within the war-torn country’s Catholic minority, which makes up around 1% of its population of 55 million people – because of his dealings with its military leadership, in charge since 2021.
His father, a farmer, died when he was two and he was raised by his mother before being taken in by the Salesians in Mandalay from the age of eight.
He enrolled in a Salesian seminary as a teenager and was ordained as a priest in 1976. He was nominated archbishop of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, in 2003.
CARDINAL PETER ERDO
Erdo, 72, from Hungary, would be seen as a compromise candidate, someone from the conservative camp who has built bridges with Francis’ progressive world.
He was considered a contender in the 2013 conclave thanks to extensive Church contacts in Europe and Africa and the fact that he was seen as a pioneer of the New Evangelisation drive to rekindle the Catholic faith in secularized nations, a priority for many.
A conservative in theology, he is seen as pragmatic and never clashed openly with Francis, unlike other tradition-minded clerics.
He did, however, raise eyebrows in the Vatican during the 2015 migrant crisis when he went against Francis’ call for churches to take in refugees, saying this would amount to human trafficking, seemingly aligning himself with Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
An expert in Church law, Erdo became a bishop in his 40s and a cardinal in 2003 when he was 51, making him the youngest member of the College of Cardinals until 2010.
He has excellent Italian, and also speaks German, French, Spanish and Russian.
CARDINAL MARIO GRECH
Grech, 68, comes from Gozo, a tiny island that is part of Malta, the smallest country in the European Union. He was appointed by Pope Francis to be secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, a heavyweight position within the Vatican.
Initially viewed as a conservative, Grech has become a torchbearer for Francis’ reforms, becoming more open to issues such as LGBT rights and Holy Communion for divorcees.
“We are going through a period of change. And to me, this is a very positive thing,” he told the Malta Today newspaper in 2018.
Grech’s allies say he has friends in both the conservative and moderate camps and, because of his high-profile role, he is known by many cardinals, an advantage in a conclave where so many cardinals are relative unknowns to each other.
CARDINAL CRISTOBAL LOPEZ ROMERO
The Spanish-born archbishop of Rabat, Morocco, 72, known for his extensive missionary work and strong advocacy for migrants, has made clear that he does not want to be pope.
“If I see any serious danger of that happening, I’ll start running from Rome,” he joked in the run-up to the conclave. Yet his name has repeatedly come up amongst Church watchers as a possible contender.
He is seen to embody Francis’ focus on the “peripheries” and interreligious dialogue, particularly with Islam, and is a member of the Salesian religious order, which makes the education and evangelization of young people, especially the poor, a priority.
Lopez Romero has spent decades ministering in North Africa, and before that Latin America, notably in Paraguay, where he worked from 1984-2003.
CARDINAL PIETRO PAROLIN
A 70-year-old Italian, Parolin is seen as a compromise candidate between progressives and conservatives. He has been a Church diplomat for most of his life and served as Pope Francis’ secretary of state since 2013.
The position is similar to that of a prime minister and secretaries of state are often called the “deputy pope” because they rank second to the pontiff in the Vatican hierarchy.
Parolin served as deputy foreign minister under Pope Benedict, who in 2009 appointed him the Vatican’s ambassador in Venezuela, where he defended the Church against moves to weaken it by then-President Hugo Chavez.
He was also the main architect of the Vatican’s rapprochement with China and Vietnam. Conservatives have attacked him for an agreement on the appointment of bishops in communist China. He has defended the agreement saying that while it was not perfect, it avoided a schism.
Parolin was never a noisy activist in the Church’s so-called culture wars, which centred on issues such as abortion and gay rights, although he did once condemn the legalisation of same-sex marriage in many countries as “a defeat for humanity”.
Parolin would return the papacy to the Italians for the first time since 1978.
CARDINAL ROBERT PREVOST
Prevost, 69, an American who has spent much of his career as a missionary in Peru, is a relative unknown on the global stage. Made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2023, he has given few media interviews and rarely speaks in public.
Originally from Chicago, he has attracted interest from his peers because of his quiet style and support for Francis’ 12-year papacy, especially his commitment to social justice issues.
Prevost served as a bishop in Chiclayo, in northwestern Peru, from 2015 to 2023.
Francis brought him to Rome that year to head the Vatican office in charge of choosing which priests should serve as Catholic bishops across the globe, meaning he has had a hand in selecting many of the world’s bishops.
Prevost said during a 2023 Vatican press conference: “Our work is to enlarge the tent and to let everyone know they are welcome inside the Church.”
CARDINAL LUIS ANTONIO TAGLE
Tagle, a Filipino, aged 67, is often called the “Asian Francis” because of his easy laugh and commitment to social justice. If elected he would be the first pontiff from Asia.
On paper, Tagle, who prefers his nickname “Chito”, seems to have all the boxes ticked to qualify as pope. He has had decades of pastoral experience since his ordination to the priesthood in 1982. He gained administrative experience, first as bishop of Imus and then as archbishop of Manila. Pope Benedict made him a cardinal in 2012.
In a move seen by some as a strategy by Francis to give Tagle some Vatican experience, the pope in 2019 appointed him head of the Church’s missionary arm, formally known as the Dicastery for Evangelisation.
Between 2015 and 2022, he was leader of Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of more than 160 Catholic relief and development organisations. Francis fired its entire leadership in 2022 following accusations of staff bullying. Tagle’s role was mostly ceremonial and he was not involved in day-to-day operations at the organisation and was apparently not himself accused of wrongdoing, but he was removed from his post.
CARDINAL MATTEO MARIA ZUPPI
When Zuppi, 69, became archbishop of Bologna in 2015, national media referred to him as the “Italian Bergoglio”, due to his affinity with Francis, the Argentine pope born Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
Zuppi is known as a “street priest” who focuses on migrants and the poor, and cares little about pomp and protocol. He goes by the name of “Father Matteo”, and in Bologna often uses a bicycle rather than an official car.
If he were made pope, conservatives would likely view him with suspicion. Victims of Church sex abuse might also object to him, since the Italian Catholic Church, which he has led since 2022, has been slow to investigate and confront the issue.
The Italian cardinal is closely associated with the Community of Sant’Egidio, a global peace and justice Catholic group based in Rome. The group brokered a 1992 peace agreement that ended a 17-year-old civil war in Mozambique, with Zuppi acting as one of the mediators.
He has engaged in more diplomacy in recent years as papal envoy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Zuppi would be the first Italian pope since 1978.
(Reporting and writing by Philip Pullella, Crispian Balmer, Alvise Armellini, Joshua McElwee in Rome, Chris Scicluna in Malta and Keith Weir in London; Editing by Frances Kerry and Janet Lawrence)
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