Who will be next Pope? The nine cardinals seen as contenders after Francis' death Pope Francis died on Easter Monday with a number of cardinals are seen as front runners to replace him The world is mourning Pope Francis after the Vatican announced his death (Image: Getty Images ) The decision-making process surrounding the election of a new pope is shrouded in secrecy. Those in Vatican circles often say if you 'enter a conclave as pope, you leave as a cardinal' - suggesting nobody could anticipate or plan the selection, which they say is instead guided by God. ‌ Join the Manchester Evening News WhatsApp group HERE But there are always those recognised to be in contention for the papacy, in particular prominent cardinals within the Church. While nobody can say who Pope Francis' successor will be following his death on Monday (April 21), there are men seen as 'frontrunners' in the process of selecting a new pontiff. Article continues below Some possible candidates to succeed Pope Francis are: Cardinal Peter Erdo The 72-year-old 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 biggest voting bloc of electors. Cardinal Peter Erdo (Image: Getty Images ) ‌ In that capacity, he got to know many African cardinals because the council hosts regular sessions with African bishops’ conferences. He had even more exposure when he helped organise Francis’s 2014 and 2015 Vatican meetings on the family and delivered key speeches, as well as during papal visits to Budapest in 2021 and 2023. Cardinal Reinhard Marx Cardinal Reinhard Marx (Image: AP ) ‌ The 71-year-old Archbishop of Munich and Freising was chosen by Pope Francis as a key adviser in 2013, and was later named to head the council overseeing Vatican finances during reforms and belt-tightening. The former president of the German bishops’ conference was a strong proponent of the controversial “synodal path” process of dialogue in the German church that began in 2020 as a response to the clergy sexual abuse scandal there. As a result, he is viewed with scepticism by conservatives who considered the process a threat to church unity, given it involved debating issues such as celibacy, homosexuality and women’s ordination. ‌ He made headlines in 2021 when he dramatically offered to resign as archbishop to atone for the German church’s dreadful abuse record, but Francis quickly rejected the resignation and told him to stay. Cardinal Marc Ouellet Cardinal Marc Ouellet (L) (Image: Getty Images ) The 80-year-old Canadian led the Vatican’s influential bishops office for more than a decade, overseeing the key clearing house for potential candidates to head dioceses around the world. ‌ Francis kept him in the job until 2023, even though he was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI, and thus helped select the more doctrinaire bishops preferred by the German pontiff. Considered more of a conservative than Francis, Cardinal Ouellet still selected pastorally minded bishops to reflect Francis’s belief that bishops should “smell like the sheep” of their flock. He defended priestly celibacy for the Latin Rite church and upheld the ban on women’s ordination but called for women to have a greater role in church governance. ‌ He has good contacts with the Latin American church, having headed the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for Latin America for more than a decade. Since 2019, his office has taken charge of investigating bishops accused of covering up for predator priests, a job that would have made him no friends among those sanctioned but could also have given him lots of otherwise confidential and possibly compromising information about fellow cardinals. Cardinal Pietro Parolin Cardinal Pietro Parolin (Image: Anadolu via Getty Images ) ‌ The 70-year-old Italian has been Francis’s secretary of state since 2014 and is considered one of the main contenders to be pope, given his prominence in the Catholic hierarchy. The veteran diplomat oversaw the Holy See’s controversial deal with China over bishop nominations and was involved – but not charged – in the Vatican’s botched investment in a London real estate venture that led to the trial in 2021 of another cardinal and nine others. A former ambassador to Venezuela, Cardinal Parolin knows the Latin American church well. He would be seen as someone who would continue in Francis’s tradition but as a more 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). ‌ But while he has managed the Vatican bureaucracy, he has no real pastoral experience. His ties to the London scandal, in which his office lost of tens of millions of dollars to bad deals and shady businessmen, could count against him. Cardinal Robert Prevost Cardinal Robert Prevost (Image: Getty Images ) The idea of an American pope has long been taboo, given the geopolitical power already wielded by the United States, but the Chicago-born 69-year-old could be a first. ‌ He has extensive experience in Peru, first as a missionary and then an archbishop, and he is currently prefect of the Vatican’s powerful Dicastery for Bishops, in charge of vetting nominations for bishops around the world. Francis clearly had an eye on him for years and sent him to run the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014. He held that position until 2023, when Francis brought him to Rome for his current role. Cardinal Prevost is also president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, a job that keeps him in regular contact with the Catholic hierarchy in the part of the world that still counts the most Catholics. ‌ In addition to his nationality, his comparative youth could count against him if his brother cardinals do not want to commit to a pope who might reign for another two decades. Cardinal Robert Sarah The 79-year-old, from Guinea, the retired head of the Vatican’s liturgy office, has long been considered the best hope for an African pope. Beloved by conservatives, he would signal a return to the doctrinaire and liturgically minded papacies of John Paul II and Benedict. ‌ Cardinal Sarah, who had previously headed the Vatican’s charity office Cor Unum, clashed with Francis on several occasions, none more seriously than when he and Benedict co-authored a book advocating the “necessity” of continued celibacy for Latin Rite priests. The book came out as Francis was weighing whether to allow married priests in the Amazon to address a priest shortage there. The implication was that Sarah had manipulated Benedict into lending his name and moral authority to a book that had all the appearances of being a counterweight to Francis’s own teaching. Francis dismissed Benedict’s secretary and several months later retired Cardinal Sarah after he turned 75. Even the cardinal’s own supporters lamented that the episode might hurt his papal chances. ‌ Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn The 80-year-old Archbishop of Vienna, Austria, was a student of Benedict’s, and thus on paper seems to have the doctrinaire academic chops to appeal to conservatives. However, he became associated with one of Francis’s most controversial moves by defending his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics as an “organic development of doctrine”, not the rupture that some conservatives contended. Cardinal Schoenborn’s parents divorced when he was a teenager, so the issue is personal. He also took heat from the Vatican when he criticised its past refusal to sanction high-ranking sexual abusers, including his predecessor as archbishop of Vienna. ‌ He has expressed support for civil unions and women as deacons, and was instrumental in editing the 1992 update of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the handbook of the church’s teaching that Benedict had spearheaded when he headed the Vatican’s doctrine office. Cardinal Luis Tagle Cardinal Luis Tagle (Image: Getty Images ) The 67-year-old, from the Philippines, would appear to be Francis’s pick for the first Asian pope. ‌ Francis brought the popular Archbishop of Manila to Rome to head the Vatican’s missionary evangelisation office, which serves the needs of the Catholic Church in much of Asia and Africa. His role took on greater weight when Francis reformed the Vatican bureaucracy and raised the importance of his evangelisation office. Cardinal Tagle often cites his Chinese lineage – his maternal grandmother was part of a Chinese family that moved to the Philippines – and he is known for becoming emotional when discussing his childhood. Though he has pastoral, Vatican and management experience – he headed the Vatican’s Caritas Internationalis federation of charity groups before coming to Rome permanently – he would be on the young side to be elected pope for life, with cardinals perhaps preferring an older candidate whose papacy would be more limited. ‌ Cardinal Matteo Zuppi Cardinal Matteo Zuppi (Image: AP ) The 69-year-old Archbishop of Bologna and president of the Italian bishops conference, elected in 2022, is closely affiliated with the Sant’Egidio Community, a Rome-based Catholic charity that was influential under Francis, particularly in interfaith dialogue. He was part of the Sant’Egidio team that helped negotiate the end of Mozambique’s civil war in the 1990s and was named Francis’s peace envoy for Russia’s war in Ukraine. ‌ Francis made him a cardinal in 2019 and later made clear he wanted him in charge of Italy’s bishops, a sign of his admiration for the prelate who, like Francis, is known as a “street priest”. In another sign of his progressive leanings and closeness to Francis, Cardinal Zuppi wrote the introduction to the Italian edition of Building A Bridge, by the Rev James Martin, an American Jesuit, about the Church’s need to improve its outreach to the LGBTQ+ community. He would be a candidate in Francis’s tradition of ministering to those on the margins, although his relative youth would count against him for cardinals seeking a short papacy. Article continues below His family has strong institutional ties: his father worked for the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, and his mother was the niece of Cardinal Carlo Confalonieri, dean of the College of Cardinals in the 1960s and 1970s.