Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

Want­ed: A holy man.

Job de­scrip­tion: Lead­ing the 1.4 bil­lion-strong Catholic Church.

Lo­ca­tion: Vat­i­can City.

There are no of­fi­cial can­di­dates for the pa­pa­cy, but some car­di­nals are con­sid­ered “pa­pa­bile,” or pos­sess­ing the char­ac­ter­is­tics nec­es­sary to be­come pope. Af­ter St. John Paul II broke the cen­turies-long Ital­ian hold on the pa­pa­cy in 1978, the field of con­tenders has broad­ened con­sid­er­ably.

When the car­di­nals en­ter the Sis­tine Chapel on May 7 to choose a suc­ces­sor to Pope Fran­cis, the first pon­tiff from Latin Amer­i­ca, they will be look­ing above all for a holy man who can guide the Catholic Church. Be­yond that, they will weigh his ad­min­is­tra­tive and pas­toral ex­pe­ri­ence and con­sid­er what the church needs to­day.

Here is a se­lec­tion of pos­si­ble con­tenders, in no par­tic­u­lar or­der. The list will be up­dat­ed as car­di­nals con­tin­ue their closed-door, pre­con­clave dis­cus­sions.

Car­di­nal Pietro Parolin

Date of Birth: Jan. 17, 1955

Na­tion­al­i­ty: Ital­ian

Po­si­tion: Vat­i­can sec­re­tary of state un­der Fran­cis

Ex­pe­ri­ence: Vet­er­an Vat­i­can diplo­mat

Made a car­di­nal by: Fran­cis

FILE - Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin is pictured in Berlin on June 29, 2021. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)

Michael Sohn

The 70-year-old vet­er­an diplo­mat was Fran­cis’ sec­re­tary of state, es­sen­tial­ly the Holy See’s prime min­is­ter.

Though as­so­ci­at­ed close­ly with Fran­cis’ pon­tif­i­cate, Parolin is much more de­mure in per­son­al­i­ty and diplo­mat­ic in his ap­proach to lead­ing than the Ar­gen­tine Je­suit he served and he knows where the Catholic Church might need a course cor­rec­tion.

Parolin 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 a 2021 tri­al of an­oth­er car­di­nal and nine oth­ers. A for­mer am­bas­sador to Venezuela, Parolin knows the Latin Amer­i­can church well and played a key role in the 2014 U.S.-Cu­ba de­tente, which the Vat­i­can helped fa­cil­i­tate.

If he were elect­ed, he would re­turn an Ital­ian to the pa­pa­cy af­ter three suc­ces­sive out­siders: St. John Paul II (Poland), Pope Bene­dict XVI (Ger­many) and Fran­cis (Ar­genti­na).

But Parolin has very lit­tle pas­toral ex­pe­ri­ence: He en­tered the sem­i­nary at age 14, four years af­ter his fa­ther was killed in a car ac­ci­dent. Af­ter his 1980 or­di­na­tion, he spent two years as a parish priest near his home­town in north­ern Italy, but then went to Rome to study and en­tered the Vat­i­can diplo­mat­ic ser­vice, where he has re­mained ever since. He has served at Vat­i­can em­bassies in Nige­ria, Mex­i­co and Venezuela.

He is wide­ly re­spect­ed for his diplo­mat­ic fi­nesse on some of the thorni­est dossiers fac­ing the Catholic Church. He has long been in­volved in the Chi­na file, and he played a hands-on role in the Holy See’s diplo­mat­ic rap­proche­ment with Viet­nam that re­sult­ed in an agree­ment to es­tab­lish a res­i­dent Vat­i­can rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the coun­try.

Parolin was al­so the Vat­i­can’s point-per­son in its frus­trat­ed ef­forts to end the wars in Ukraine and the Mid­dle East. He has tried to make the church’s voice heard as the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion be­gan work­ing to end Rus­sia’s war in Ukraine.

“Let’s hope we can ar­rive at a peace that, in or­der to be sol­id, last­ing, must be a just peace, must in­volve all the ac­tors who are at stake and take in­to ac­count the prin­ci­ples of in­ter­na­tion­al law and the UN de­c­la­ra­tions,” he said.

Parolin might find the geopo­lit­i­cal re­al­i­ty ush­ered in by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion some­what un­re­cep­tive to the Holy See’s soft pow­er.

— By Nicole Win­field in Vat­i­can City

Car­di­nal Luis An­to­nio Tagle

Date of Birth: June 21, 1957

Na­tion­al­i­ty: Fil­ipino

Po­si­tion: Pro-Pre­fect, Di­cas­t­ery for Evan­ge­liza­tion un­der Fran­cis

Ex­pe­ri­ence: For­mer arch­bish­op of Mani­la, Philip­pines

Made a car­di­nal by: Bene­dict

FILE - Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle smiles during a news conference at the Vatican on Oct. 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

Alessandra Tarantino

Tagle, 67, is on many book­mak­ers’ lists to be the first Asian pope, a choice that would ac­knowl­edge a part of the world where the church is grow­ing.

Fran­cis brought the pop­u­lar arch­bish­op of Mani­la to Rome to head the Vat­i­can’s mis­sion­ary evan­ge­liza­tion 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. Tagle of­ten cites his Chi­nese her­itage — his ma­ter­nal grand­moth­er was part of a Chi­nese fam­i­ly that moved to the Philip­pines.

Though he has pas­toral, Vat­i­can and man­age­ment ex­pe­ri­ence — he head­ed the Vat­i­can’s Car­i­tas In­ter­na­tion­alis fed­er­a­tion of char­i­ty groups be­fore com­ing to Rome per­ma­nent­ly — Tagle would be on the young side to be elect­ed pope, with car­di­nals per­haps pre­fer­ring an old­er can­di­date whose pa­pa­cy would be more lim­it­ed.

Tagle is known as a good com­mu­ni­ca­tor and teacher — key at­trib­ut­es for a pope.

“The pope will have to do a lot of teach­ing, we’ll have to face the cam­eras all the time so if there will be a com­mu­ni­ca­tor pope, that’s very de­sir­able,” said Leo Ocam­po, a the­ol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of San­to Tomas in Mani­la.

That said, Tagle’s tenure at Car­i­tas was not with­out con­tro­ver­sy and some have ques­tioned his man­age­ment skills.

In 2022 , Fran­cis oust­ed the Car­i­tas man­age­ment, in­clud­ing de­mot­ing Tagle. The Holy See said an out­side in­ves­ti­ga­tion had found “re­al de­fi­cien­cies” in man­age­ment that had af­fect­ed staff morale at the Car­i­tas sec­re­tari­at in Rome.

— By Jim Gomez in Mani­la, Philip­pines, and Nicole Win­field in Vat­i­can City

Car­di­nal Fridolin Am­bon­go Be­sun­gu

Date of Birth: Jan. 24, 1960

Na­tion­al­i­ty: Con­golese

Po­si­tion: Arch­bish­op of Kin­shasa, Con­go

Ex­pe­ri­ence: Pres­i­dent of the bish­ops con­fer­ences of Africa and Mada­gas­car

Made a car­di­nal by: Fran­cis

FILE - Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu poses for photographers at the Vatican on Oct. 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

Andrew Medichini

The 65-year-old Am­bon­go is one of Africa’s most out­spo­ken Catholic lead­ers, head­ing the arch­dio­cese that has the largest num­ber of Catholics on the con­ti­nent that seen as the fu­ture of the church.

He has been arch­bish­op of Con­go’s cap­i­tal since 2018 and a car­di­nal since in 2019. Fran­cis al­so ap­point­ed him to a group of ad­vis­ers that was help­ing re­or­ga­nize the Vat­i­can bu­reau­cra­cy.

In Con­go and across Africa, Am­bon­go has been deeply com­mit­ted to the Catholic or­tho­doxy and is seen as con­ser­v­a­tive.

In 2024, he signed a state­ment on be­half of the bish­ops con­fer­ences of Africa and Mada­gas­car re­fus­ing to fol­low Fran­cis’ de­c­la­ra­tion al­low­ing priests to of­fer bless­ings to same-sex cou­ples in what amount­ed to con­ti­nent-wide dis­sent from a pa­pal teach­ing. The re­buke crys­tal­ized both the African church’s line on LGBTQ+ out­reach and Am­bon­go’s stature with­in the African hi­er­ar­chy.

He has re­ceived praise from some in Con­go for pro­mot­ing in­ter­faith tol­er­ance, es­pe­cial­ly on a con­ti­nent where re­li­gious di­vi­sions be­tween Chris­tians and Mus­lims are com­mon.

“He is for the open­ness of the church to dif­fer­ent cul­tures,” said Mon­sign­or Do­na­tien Ns­hole, sec­re­tary-gen­er­al of the Na­tion­al Epis­co­pal Con­fer­ence of Con­go, who has long worked with Am­bon­go.

An out­spo­ken gov­ern­ment crit­ic, the car­di­nal is al­so known for his un­wa­ver­ing ad­vo­ca­cy for so­cial jus­tice.

In a coun­try with high pover­ty and hunger lev­els de­spite be­ing rich in min­er­als, and where fight­ing by rebel groups has killed thou­sands and dis­placed mil­lions in one of the world’s biggest hu­man­i­tar­i­an crises, he fre­quent­ly crit­i­cizes both gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion and in­ac­tion, as well as the ex­ploita­tion of the coun­try’s nat­ur­al re­sources by for­eign pow­ers.

“Con­go is the plate from which every­one eats, ex­cept for our peo­ple,” he said last year dur­ing a speech at the Pon­tif­i­cal An­to­ni­anum Uni­ver­si­ty.

Am­bon­go’s crit­i­cism of au­thor­i­ties has drawn both pub­lic ad­mi­ra­tion and le­gal scruti­ny. Last year, pros­e­cu­tors or­dered a ju­di­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion of him af­ter ac­cus­ing him of “sedi­tious be­hav­ior” over his crit­i­cism of the gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the con­flict in east­ern Con­go.

— By Mark Banchere­au in Dakar, Sene­gal

Car­di­nal Mat­teo Zup­pi

Date of Birth: Oct. 11, 1955

Na­tion­al­i­ty: Ital­ian

Cur­rent po­si­tion: Arch­bish­op of Bologna, Italy, pres­i­dent of the Ital­ian bish­ops con­fer­ence

Pre­vi­ous po­si­tion: Aux­il­iary bish­op of Rome

Made a car­di­nal by: Fran­cis

FILE - Cardinal Matteo Zuppi poses for photographers at the Vatican on Oct. 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

Andrew Medichini

Zup­pi, 69, came up as a street priest in the im­age of Fran­cis, who pro­mot­ed him quick­ly: first to arch­bish­op of the wealthy arch­dio­cese of Bologna in north­ern Italy in 2015, be­fore be­stow­ing the ti­tle of car­di­nal in 2019.

He is close­ly af­fil­i­at­ed with the Sant’Egidio Com­mu­ni­ty, a Rome-based Catholic char­i­ty that was in­flu­en­tial un­der Fran­cis, par­tic­u­lar­ly in in­ter­faith di­a­logue. Zup­pi was part of Sant’Egidio’s team that helped ne­go­ti­ate the end of Mozam­bique’s civ­il war in the 1990s and was named Fran­cis’ peace en­voy for Rus­sia’s war in Ukraine.

He trav­elled to Kyiv and Moscow af­ter Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy ap­pealed to the Holy See for help in win­ning the re­lease of 19,000 Ukrain­ian chil­dren tak­en from their fam­i­lies and brought to Rus­sia dur­ing the war. The mis­sion al­so took him to Chi­na and the Unit­ed States.

Af­ter mak­ing him a car­di­nal, Fran­cis 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” — some­one who pri­or­i­tizes min­is­ter­ing to poor and home­less peo­ple and refugees.

Zup­pi would be a can­di­date in Fran­cis’ tra­di­tion of min­is­ter­ing to those on the mar­gins, al­though his rel­a­tive youth would count against him for car­di­nals seek­ing a short pa­pa­cy.

In a sign of his pro­gres­sive lean­ings, 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.

Zup­pi wrote that build­ing bridges with the com­mu­ni­ty was a “dif­fi­cult process, still un­fold­ing.’' He rec­og­nized that “do­ing noth­ing, on the oth­er hand, risks caus­ing a great deal of suf­fer­ing, makes peo­ple feel lone­ly, and of­ten leads to the adop­tion of po­si­tions that are both con­trast­ing and ex­treme.”

Zup­pi’s fam­i­ly al­so 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.

— By Colleen Bar­ry in Vat­i­can City

Car­di­nal Péter Erdő

Date of Birth: June 25, 1952

Na­tion­al­i­ty: Hun­gar­i­an

Po­si­tion: Arch­bish­op of Es­zter­gom-Bu­dapest, Hun­gary

Past ex­pe­ri­ence: Twice elect­ed head of the um­brel­la group of Eu­ro­pean bish­ops’ con­fer­ences

Made a car­di­nal by: John Paul

FILE - Cardinal Peter Erdo is interviewed by The Associated Press in Budapest, Hungary, on April 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos, File)

Denes Erdos

Known by his peers as a se­ri­ous the­olo­gian, schol­ar and ed­u­ca­tor, Erdő, 72, is a lead­ing con­tender among con­ser­v­a­tives. He has served as the arch­bish­op of Es­zter­gom-Bu­dapest since 2002 and was made a car­di­nal by John Paul the fol­low­ing year. He has par­tic­i­pat­ed in two con­claves, in 2005 and 2013, for the se­lec­tion of Bene­dict and Fran­cis.

Hold­ing doc­tor­ates in the­ol­o­gy and canon law, Erdő, speaks six lan­guages, is a pro­po­nent of doc­tri­nal or­tho­doxy, and cham­pi­ons the church’s po­si­tions on is­sues like abor­tion and same-sex mar­riage.

Erdő op­pos­es same-sex unions and has al­so re­sist­ed sug­ges­tions that Catholics who re­mar­ry af­ter di­vorce be able to re­ceive com­mu­nion. He stat­ed in 2015 that di­vorced Catholics should on­ly be per­mit­ted com­mu­nion if they re­main sex­u­al­ly ab­sti­nent in their new mar­riage.

An ad­vo­cate for tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly struc­tures, he helped or­ga­nize Fran­cis’ 2014 and 2015 Vat­i­can meet­ings on the fam­i­ly.

From 2006 to 2016, Erdő served as pres­i­dent of the Coun­cil of Eu­ro­pean Bish­ops’ Con­fer­ences, help­ing to fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion among Catholic bish­ops across Eu­rope and to ad­dress con­tem­po­rary is­sues fac­ing the church on the con­ti­nent.

While care­ful to avoid tak­ing part in Hun­gary’s of­ten tu­mul­tuous po­lit­i­cal life, Erdő has main­tained a close re­la­tion­ship with the coun­try’s right­ist pop­ulist gov­ern­ment, which pro­vides gen­er­ous sub­si­dies to Chris­t­ian church­es.

He has been re­luc­tant to take po­si­tions on sev­er­al of the gov­ern­ment’s poli­cies that di­vid­ed so­ci­ety in Hun­gary such as pub­lic cam­paigns that vil­lainized mi­grants and refugees and laws that erod­ed the rights of LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ties.

When hun­dreds of thou­sands of asy­lum-seek­ers en­tered Eu­rope in 2015 flee­ing war and de­pri­va­tion in the Mid­dle East and Africa, Erdő em­pha­sized that the church had a Chris­t­ian du­ty to pro­vide hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance to those in need but stopped short of the full-throat­ed ad­vo­ca­cy for mi­grants that was one of Fran­cis’ top pri­or­i­ties.

— By Justin Spike in Bu­dapest, Hun­gary

__________

As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­li­gion cov­er­age re­ceives sup­port through the AP’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with The Con­ver­sa­tion US, with fund­ing from Lil­ly En­dow­ment Inc. The AP is sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for this con­tent.