Next pope? Cardinals meet today

ROME — For weeks, this city has been the epicenter of a global debate on one pressing question: Who should be the next pope?

Veteran Vatican reporter Marco Politi of Italian daily La Repubblica has argued that an African might delicately and effectively confront the growth of Islam.

Brazilian President Lula da Silva has expressed his "sincere desire" for a homegrown pope focused on a Third World base that accounts for most of Catholicism's 1.1 billion adherents.

And an Irish trading exchange says the smart money is on a German who could continue John Paul II's fight for a more observant Old World continent.

But all such talk will soon take a back seat to history. Today, the papal conclave, a secret meeting of the 115 voting cardinals, begins here. As it has for centuries, their verdict on the next Vicar of Christ will float out to the world, perhaps this week, perhaps next, on a puff of snow-white smoke.

"This event is steeped in ritual and romance, but it also is an election upon which hangs real consequence," says John Allen, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. "We've seen that the Vatican has influence. All our lives will be different depending on who is elected pope."

Proof of that is in John Paul II's 26-year, travel-filled tenure, which brought the church an unprecedented level of visibility and publicity.

But the papal election itself remains anachronistic, a gathering of grandfatherly figures who earnestly seek guidance not from polls or stump speeches but from the Holy Spirit itself.

The vote has over the centuries provided twists and turns to rival "The Da Vinci Code" — from cardinals being denied meals to popes chosen by birds.

Even the word is mysterious. Conclave is derived from cum clavis, Latin for "with key," the preferred method for getting the red-robed voters to get down to business and make their pick. This Draconian lockup grew out of the longest papal election in history, nearly three years.

All participants are sworn to secrecy. Vatican workers took an oath on the Gospels on Friday. But some of the Vatican's 21st-century conclave rules are well-known:

• Prayerful parade. At 4:30 p.m. local time Monday, a procession of cardinals that excludes the infirm and those over 80 years of age files into the Sistine Chapel singing the Litany of Saints, which invokes divine inspiration via the Holy Spirit.