Papal Conclave: Decision time for cardinals choosing the next pope
Cardinals will begin trying to find a new pope on Wednesday afternoon, when the Conclave opens, more than two weeks after the death of Pope Francis.
Given the challenges facing the Catholic Church, it is a daunting task for the 133 cardinal electors, who come from 70 different countries.
That is because sexual abuse and financials scandals have harmed the church's reputation and there are trends which are turning people away from organized religion in many parts of the world. The Vatican is also struggling with financial issues.
There is also an element of uncertainty about the election because many of the cardinal electors did not know one another before last week.
They held their last day of pre-conclave meetings on Tuesday morning, during which Francis' fisherman's ring and his official seal were destroyed in one of the final formal rites of the transition of his pontificate to the next.
When the Conclave opens on Wednesday afternoon, the "princes of the church" will walk solemnly into the Sistine Chapel to the meditative chant of the "Litany of the Saints."
They'll take their oaths of secrecy under the daunting vision of heaven and hell in Michelangelo's "Last Judgment," hear a meditation from a senior cardinal and then cast their first ballot.
Assuming no candidate secures the necessary two-thirds majority, or 89 votes, the cardinals will retire for the day and return on Thursday. They will have two ballots in the morning and then two in the afternoon, each successive day, until a winner is found.
The person who is selected to become the next pope, will almost certainly be one of the 133 cardinals within the Conclave and there is a lot of speculation about who that will be.
There are some real-world geopolitical concerns to take into consideration.
The Catholic Church is growing in Africa and Asia , both in numbers of baptised faithful and vocations to the priesthood and women's religious orders.
It is shrinking in traditionally Catholic bastions of Europe, with empty churches and the faithful formally leaving the church in places like Germany, many citing the abuse scandals.
Pope Francis was the first Latin American pope , and the region still counts the majority of the world's Catholics.
However, India has four cardinal-electors, and overall Asia counts 23, making it the second-biggest voting bloc after Europe, which has 53 (or likely 52, given that one is not expected to participate for health reasons). According to Vatican statistics, Catholics represent 3.3% of the population in Asia, but their numbers are growing, especially in terms of seminarians, as they are in Africa, where Catholics represent about 20% of the population.
Whatever the final outcome is, there will be a lot of attention on chimney of the Sistine Chapel in the coming days.
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