Who Is on the Shortlist to Be the Next Pope?

With the passing of Pope Francis early Easter Monday morning, the Catholic Church enters a period of mourning while the College of Cardinals, guided by the Holy Spirit, prepares to choose the next Bishop of Rome.

First, however, the Church will bury and mourn their holy father. When Francis reviewed his funeral rites in 2024, he opted for a public viewing in St. Peter’s Basilica with more simple elements than previous popes.

Rather than have his body elevated on a pedestal, for example, the pope’s body will remain on the ground during the viewing period. The College of Cardinals will decide exactly when the visitation will begin, which will kick off with a large procession into the basilica.

In a similar way, Francis has chosen to be buried in a single coffin made of wood and zinc, rather than the usual three nested coffins of elm (or oak), zinc, and cypress respectively. After public viewing, the coffin will be closed the night before the funeral with a reading of Francis’ “rogito,” or “deed,” which details the deceased pope’s life and papacy and will be buried with the pope. 

The funeral is expected to take place within 4 to 6 days. The College of Cardinals, led by its dean, Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, 91, will preside over the funeral. Francis will be laid to rest not in St. Peter’s Basilica but in the Basilica of St. Mary Major, one of his favorite places for prayer. 

The funeral will begin the “Novendiale,” a period of nine days of mourning for the deceased pope during which special requiem Masses will be said for the repose of Francis’ soul.

In about two weeks’ time, Re will summon the College of Cardinals for a conclave where a new pope will be chosen. 

The conclave will gather in the Sistine Chapel where they will discuss and vote by secret ballot. Only cardinals under 80 are eligible to vote, and a two-thirds majority is required to elect the next pope. The cardinals will remain in the isolation of conclave until someone carries two-thirds of the voting members.

After each round of voting, the ballots are burned with an additive that turns the smoke black or white—black meaning the conclave remains undecided, white meaning a new pope has been chosen.

The white smoke puts an end to the interregnum or sede vacante (“the seat being vacant”) period.

Who the conclave produces as the next pope is anyone’s guess. Some cardinals, by virtue of their station and works, have been identified as papabili, which means “pope-worthy,” as Francis’ health declined.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin has served as the Vatican secretariat of state since the pope tapped him for the post in 2013. The 70-year-old Italian has spent more than four decades in ambassadorial roles for the Catholic Church.

Some have put another Italian, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, on the shortlist. The 59-year-old prelate has served in Jerusalem for over 30 years and was made a cardinal just prior to the Hamas-Israel war breaking out in 2023. Throughout the war, Pizzaballa has offered himself in exchange of hostages and documented and condemned attacks on ancient Christian communities.

Cardinal Peter Erdo, the Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and Primate of Hungary since 2003, has also been floated as Pope Francis’ replacement. When Pope John Paul II made Erdo a cardinal in 2003, the Budapest-born priest was the youngest member of the College of Cardinals until the appointment of Reinhard Marx in 2010. Today, Erdo is 72 years old.

If Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle emerges from conclave as Francis’ successor, Tagle would be a pope of many firsts. Tagle, the head of the Vatican’s evangelization office and former Archbishop of Manila, would be the first Asian pope and first pope fully fluent in English. It’s not an outside chance, either, as many Vatican observers believe Tagle is the frontrunner.

In the coming weeks, western observers will be tempted to shoehorn the election of a new pope into pre-existing right-left political dynamics. While tension does exist between elements of the church considered ‘right’ and ‘left,’ the debate will likely be animated by how the Church responds to post-modernity. The College of Cardinals must decide whether or not to continue the Pope Francis model of high activity and engagement, which sometimes leads to a sense of volatility, or a movement towards a re-emphasis of the fundamentals of the faith and its tradition.

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