Who will be the next Pope? Key candidates in an unpredictable contest

Who will be the next pope? The selection would have monumental implications for the Catholic Church and the 1.4 billion baptised Roman Catholics around the globe.

It is also going to be a highly unpredictable and open procedure for a number of reasons.

The College of Cardinals will assemble in conclave within the Sistine Chapel to debate and then cast their ballots for their preferred candidates until one name is a clear winner.

Because 80% of the cardinals chosen by Pope Francis himself, they are not just voting for the first time for a pope, but will offer a varied global perspective.

For the very first time in history, fewer than half of the electors who will have a vote will be European.

And though the college may be controlled by his appointments, they were not exclusively "progressive" or "traditionalist".

For all those reasons, it is harder than ever to predict who will be next Pope to be elected.

Will the cardinals elect an African or Asian Pope, or perhaps one of the veteran Vatican hands?

Following are some names believed to be mentioned as the future successor of Francis, and many more are due in days ahead.

Pietro Parolin

Nationality: Italian

Age: 70

Soft-spoken Italian Cardinal Parolin was the Vatican's secretary of state under Pope Francis – in other words, the Pope's top adviser. The secretary of state also heads the Roman Curia, the Church's central administration.

Having effectively acted as deputy pope, he could be seen as a favorite.

He is viewed by others as being more likely to concentrate on diplomacy and a world view than on the integrity of Catholic teaching. His critics view that as a problem, while his supporters view an asset.

But he has denounced legalisation of same-sex marriage around the world, calling a historic 2015 vote in favour in the Republic of Ireland "a defeat for humanity.".

Bookmakers may be betting on him, however, Cardinal Parolin will be very well aware of an old Italian saying that emphasizes the unpredictability of the pope-nominating ritual: "He who enters a conclave as a pope, leaves it as a cardinal."

A few 213 of the previous 266 popes have been Italian and even though there has not been an Italian pope since 40 years ago, the shift of the high ranks of the Church away from Italy and Europe could mean that there may not be another for now.

Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle

Nationality: Filipino

Age: 67

May the next pope be from Asia?

Cardinal Tagle has decades of pastoral experience – i.e., he is a dynamic Church leader among the faithful rather than a Holy See diplomat or solitary expert in Church law.

The Church is immensely influential in the Philippines, where there are around 80% Catholics. There are currently a record five members of the College of Cardinals – who could make quite a formidable lobby group if all of them are backing Cardinal Tagle.

He is a moderate in the Catholic tradition, and has been described as the "Asian Francis" because of an commitment to social justice and a concern for migrants shared by the late pope.

He has spoken out against abortion rights, describing them as "a form of murder" – something that aligns with the Church's broad position that human life starts at conception. He has also criticized euthanasia.

But in 2015 as Manila Archbishop, Cardinal Tagle called on the Church to rethink its "severe" stance against gay people, divorcees and single mothers, saying past severity had done irreparable harm and left people feeling "branded", and that all people deserved respect and compassion.

The cardinal was a possible candidate to be pope as early as the 2013 conclave at which Francis was elected.

Asked a decade ago how he felt about speculation he could be next in line, he replied: "I take it like a joke! It's comical."

Fridolin Ambongo Besungu

Nationality: Congolese

Age: 65

It is highly probable that the next Pope will be African, as the Catholic Church is steadily adding millions of new members there. Cardinal Ambongo is also in the running, born in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

He has been Archbishop of Kinshasa for seven years and was created cardinal by Pope Francis.

He is culturally conservative and opposed to blessings of same-sex marriages, stating that "unions of persons of the same sex are considered contradictory to cultural norms and intrinsically evil.".

Although Christianity prevails in the DRC, Christians there have been killed and persecuted by jihadist organization Islamic State and its allied rebels. In such a context, Cardinal Ambongo is regarded as a fierce protector of the Church.

But in a 2020 interview, he employed words in the defence of religious diversity, saying: "Let Protestants be Protestants and Muslims be Muslims. We are going to work with them. But everyone has to keep their own identity."

These words may cause some cardinals to wonder if he is completely in tune with their sense of mission - where Catholics are bent on taking the Church's message around the world.

Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson

Nationality: Ghanaian

Age: 76

If he is elected by his fellow cardinals, the influential Cardinal Turkson would also be the first African pope in 1,500 years.

Like Cardinal Ambongo, he stated he does not want the position. "I'm not sure whether anyone does aspire to become a Pope," he told the BBC in 2013.

Pressed on whether Africa stood on a sound basis to have the next Pope elected on grounds of the spread of the Church in the continent, he answered that he didn't believe that the Pope would be elected based on figures, as "those sorts of factors tend to cloud the issue." 

He became the first Ghanaian to become a cardinal in 2003 during Pope John Paul II.

As with Cardinal Tagle, so with Cardinal Turkson a decade later, when Francis was elected. In fact, bookmakers made him favourite prior to voting.

A former funk group guitarist, Cardinal Turkson is a man of life.

Conservative in nature, as many African cardinals are, he has denounced the criminalisation of gay relationships in African countries like his own Ghana.

In a 2023 BBC interview when Ghana's parliament was discussing a bill aimed at severely punishing LGBTQ+ persons, Turkson opined that homosexuality should not be considered an offense.

He was already under fire in 2012 for issuing threats of the spread of Islam across Europe in a Vatican summit for bishops and issued an apology later. BBC