A preferred saying in Vatican circles is that when you “enter a conclave as pope, you leave as a cardinal.”
It implies the sacred and secretive course of is not any recognition contest or marketing campaign, however moderately the divinely impressed election of Christ’s Vicar on Earth by the princes of the church.
Nonetheless, there are at all times front-runners, often called “papabile,” who’ve no less than a number of the qualities thought of essential to be pope — very similar to these depicted in final yr’s Oscar-nominated movie “Conclave.”
Any baptized Catholic male is eligible, although solely cardinals have been chosen since 1378. The winner should obtain no less than two-thirds of the vote from these cardinals below age 80 and thus eligible to take part. Pope Francis, who died Monday, appointed the overwhelming majority of electors, typically tapping males who share his pastoral priorities, which suggests continuity moderately than rupture.
Anybody attempting to handicap the end result ought to do not forget that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was thought of too previous to be elected pope in 2013 at age 76, and that Karol Wojtyla wasn’t on any front-runner lists going into the 1978 conclave that elected him Pope John Paul II.
Listed below are some attainable candidates:
Cardinal Péter Erdő
Vatican Media through Vatican Pool/Getty Pictures
Vatican Media through Vatican Pool/Getty Pictures
Pope Francis greets archbishop of Budapest cardinal Péter Erdő (L) throughout a Mass at Kossuth Lajos Sq. on April 30, 2023 in Budapest, Hungary.
Erdő, 72, the archbishop of Budapest and primate of Hungary, was twice elected head of the Council of European Episcopal Conferences, in 2005 and 2011, suggesting he enjoys the esteem of European cardinals who make up the most important voting bloc of electors. In that capability, Erdő received to know many African cardinals as a result of the council hosts common periods with African bishops’ conferences. Erdő had much more publicity when he helped set up Francis’ 2014 and 2015 Vatican conferences on the household and delivered key speeches, in addition to throughout papal visits to Budapest in 2021 and 2023.
Cardinal Reinhard Marx
Tiziana Fabi/AFP through Getty Pictures
Tiziana Fabi/AFP through Getty Pictures
Cardinal Reinhard Marx walks in procession throughout the mass for Palm Sunday at St Peter’s sq. within the Vatican on April 13, 2025.
Marx, 71, the archbishop of Munich and Freising, was chosen by Francis as a key adviser in 2013. Marx later was named to go the council overseeing Vatican funds throughout reforms and belt-tightening. The previous president of the German bishops’ convention was a robust proponent of the controversial “synodal path” strategy of dialogue within the German church that started in 2020 as a response to the clergy sexual abuse scandal there. Because of this, he’s considered with skepticism by conservatives who thought of the method a risk to church unity, given it concerned debating points resembling celibacy, homosexuality and girls’s ordination. Marx made headlines in 2021 when he dramatically supplied to resign as archbishop to atone for the German church’s dreadful abuse report, however Francis rapidly rejected the resignation and advised him to remain.
Cardinal Marc Ouellet
Franco Origlia/Getty Pictures
Franco Origlia/Getty Pictures
Canadian cardinal Marc Ouellet attends the Mass on the Sunday of the Phrase of God at St. Peter’s Basilica on January 26, 2025 in Vatican Metropolis, Vatican.
Ouellet, 80, of Canada, led the Vatican’s influential bishops workplace for over a decade, overseeing the important thing clearinghouse for potential candidates to go dioceses all over the world. Francis saved Ouellet within the job till 2023, although he was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI, and thus helped choose the extra doctrinaire bishops most well-liked by the German pontiff. Thought of extra of a conservative than Francis, Ouellet nonetheless chosen pastorally minded bishops to replicate Francis’ perception that bishops ought to “smell like the sheep” of their flock. Ouellet defended priestly celibacy for the Latin Ceremony church and upheld the ban on ladies’s ordination however referred to as for ladies to have a higher function in church governance. He has good contacts with the Latin American church, having headed the Vatican’s Pontifical Fee for Latin America for over a decade. Since 2019, his workplace has taken cost of investigating bishops accused of overlaying up for predator monks, a job that may have made him no mates amongst these sanctioned but in addition may have given him numerous in any other case confidential and presumably compromising details about fellow cardinals.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin
Tiziana Fabi/AFP through Getty Pictures
Tiziana Fabi/AFP through Getty Pictures
The Vatican’s Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin attends a mass for Palm Sunday in St Peter’s sq. within the Vatican on April 13, 2025.
Parolin, 70, of Italy, has been Francis’ secretary of state since 2014 and is taken into account one of many primary contenders to be pope, given his prominence within the Catholic hierarchy. The veteran diplomat oversaw the Holy See’s controversial take care of China over bishop nominations and was concerned — however not charged — within the Vatican’s botched funding in a London actual property enterprise that led to a 2021 trial of one other cardinal and 9 others. A former ambassador to Venezuela, Parolin is aware of the Latin American church nicely. He could be seen as somebody who would proceed in Francis’ custom however as a extra sober and timid diplomatic insider, returning an Italian to the papacy after three successive outsiders: St. John Paul II (Poland); Benedict (Germany) and Francis (Argentina). However whereas Parolin has managed the Vatican forms, he has no actual pastoral expertise. His ties to the London scandal, wherein his workplace misplaced of tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to unhealthy offers and shady businessmen, may depend towards him.
Cardinal Robert Prevost
Christopher Furlong/Getty Pictures
Christopher Furlong/Getty Pictures
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost leads rosary prayers in St Peter’s Sq. on March 3, 2025 in Vatican Metropolis.
The concept of an American pope has lengthy been taboo, given the geopolitical energy already wielded by the US. However the Chicago-born Prevost, 69, might be a primary. He has in depth expertise in Peru, first as a missionary after which an archbishop, and he’s at present prefect of the Vatican’s highly effective dicastery for bishops, accountable for vetting nominations for bishops all over the world. Francis clearly had an eye fixed on him for years and despatched him to run the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014. He held that place till 2023, when Francis introduced him to Rome for his present function. Prevost can be president of the Pontifical Fee for Latin America, a job that retains him in common contact with the Catholic hierarchy within the a part of the world that also counts essentially the most Catholics. Along with his nationality, Prevost’s comparative youth may depend towards him if his brother cardinals don’t wish to decide to a pope who may reign for an additional twenty years.
Cardinal Robert Sarah
Man Peterson/AFP through Getty Pictures
Man Peterson/AFP through Getty Pictures
Guinean cardinal Robert Sarah (L) attends a prayer on the Cathedral of Our Woman of Victories in Dakar on December 4, 2023.
Sarah, 79, of Guinea, the retired head of the Vatican’s liturgy workplace, was lengthy thought of the most effective hope for an African pope. Beloved by conservatives, Sarah would sign a return to the doctrinaire and liturgically minded papacies of John Paul II and Benedict. Sarah, who had beforehand headed the Vatican’s charity workplace Cor Unum, clashed on a number of events with Francis, none extra significantly than when he and Benedict co-authored a guide advocating the “necessity” of continued celibacy for Latin Ceremony monks. The guide got here out as Francis was weighing whether or not to permit married monks within the Amazon to deal with a priest scarcity there. The implication was that Sarah had manipulated Benedict into lending his identify and ethical authority to a guide that had all of the appearances of being a counterweight to the Francis’ personal educating. Francis dismissed Benedict’s secretary and several other months later retired Sarah after he turned 75. Even Sarah’s supporters lamented the episode harm his papal possibilities.
Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn
Hans Klaus Techt/APA/AFP through Getty Pictures
Hans Klaus Techt/APA/AFP through Getty Pictures
Austrian cardinal Christoph Schoenborn attends a press convention in Vienna on January 22, 2025.
Schoenborn, 80, the archbishop of Vienna, Austria, was a pupil of Benedict’s, and thus on paper appears to have the doctrinaire tutorial chops to attraction to conservatives. Nonetheless, he grew to become related to certainly one of Francis’ most controversial strikes by defending his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics as an “organic development of doctrine,” not the rupture that some conservatives contended. Schoenborn’s mother and father divorced when he was a teen, so the difficulty is private. He additionally took warmth from the Vatican when he criticized its previous refusal to sanction high-ranking sexual abusers, together with his predecessor as archbishop of Vienna. Schoenborn has expressed assist for civil unions and girls as deacons, and was instrumental in modifying the 1992 replace of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the handbook of the church’s educating that Benedict had spearheaded when he headed the Vatican’s doctrine workplace.
Cardinal Luis Tagle
Franco Origlia/Getty Pictures
Franco Origlia/Getty Pictures
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle attends a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica on December 8, 2024 in Vatican Metropolis, Vatican.
Tagle, 67, of the Philippines, would look like Francis’ choose for the primary Asian pope. Francis introduced the favored archbishop of Manila to Rome to go the Vatican’s missionary evangelization workplace, which serves the wants of the Catholic Church in a lot of Asia and Africa. His function took on higher weight when Francis reformed the Vatican forms and raised the significance of his evangelization workplace. Tagle typically cites his Chinese language lineage – his maternal grandmother was a part of a Chinese language household that moved to the Philippines — and he’s identified for turning into emotional when discussing his childhood. Although he has pastoral, Vatican and administration expertise — he headed the Vatican’s Caritas Internationalis federation of charity teams earlier than coming to Rome completely — Tagle could be on the younger aspect to be elected pope for all times, with cardinals maybe preferring an older candidate whose papacy could be extra restricted.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi
Andreas Solaro/AFP through Getty Pictures
Andreas Solaro/AFP through Getty Pictures
Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi on the Vatican on April 1, 2025.
