After Francis: What happens when the Pope passes? Who is in line to succeed him?

The death of a pope starts a centuries-old ritual involving sacred oaths by the cardinals electing a successor, the piercing of ballots with a needle and thread after they're counted, and then burning them to produce either the white or black smoke to signal if there's a new leader for the world's 1.3 billion Catholics.

The election itself is shrouded in secrecy, with cardinals forbidden from communicating with the outside world what happened during the voting in the conclave behind the frescoed walls of the Sistine Chapel.

St John Paul II rewrote the regulations on papal elections in a 1996 document that remains largely in force, though Pope Benedict XVI amended it twice before he resigned.

Here is what happens when a pope dies, a period known as the sede vacante, or the ‘vacant See’.

Who's in charge?

If the pope has died, the camerlengo, or chamberlain, must certify the death and seal the papal apartment. He runs the administrative and financial duties of the Holy See until a new pope takes over.

The largely ceremonial office of camerlengo is currently held by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Irish-born American head of the Vatican's laity office.

Nearly all prefects of Vatican offices lose their jobs when a pope dies, but a few stay on, including the foreign minister and the master of liturgical ceremonies, who plays a key role in assembling the conclave.

The dean of the College of Cardinals summons the cardinals for the funeral, presiding over the mass before the conclave begins. That position is currently held by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the retired head of the Vatican's office for bishops.

In November 2024, Francis reformed the rites to be used for his funeral, simplifying them to emphasise his role as a mere bishop and allowing for burial outside the Vatican. Francis has chosen to be buried in St Mary Major Basilica, where his favourite icon of the Virgin Mary, the Salus Populi Romani, is located.

What is the timeline?

The death of a pope begins a precise sequence of events that include the confirmation of death in the pontiff's home, the transfer of the coffin to St Peter's Basilica for public viewing, a funeral mass and burial. Interment must take place between the fourth and sixth day after his death.

After the funeral, there are nine days of official mourning, known as the novendiali.

During this period, the cardinals arrive in Rome. To give everyone time to assemble, the conclave must begin 15–20 days after the sede vacante is declared, although it can start sooner if the cardinals agree.

Who can elect a pope?

Only cardinals under age 80 are eligible and current regulations limit the number of electors to 120. According to the most recently updated Vatican statistics, there were 136 cardinals under age 80 and eligible to vote, though that number may change before the conclave begins.

Those over 80 can't vote but can participate in pre-conclave meetings, known as general congregations, in which church problems are discussed. It was in these meetings in 2013 that then-cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio spoke about the need for the church to go to the “existential peripheries” to find those who suffer — an off-the-cuff speech that helped his election.

Who are possible candidates?

Any baptised Roman Catholic male is eligible to be pope, but since 1378, only cardinals have been selected. Some current leading candidates:

• Cardinal Pietro Parolin of Italy, 70, Francis' secretary of state and a veteran Vatican diplomat.

• Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Canada, 80, head of the Vatican's bishops office from 2010 to 2023.

• Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Austria, 80, a student of Pope Benedict XVI, and thus ostensibly having appeal for conservatives.

• Cardinal Luis Tagle of the Philippines, 67, brought by Francis to head the Vatican's massive missionary office.

• Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Italy, 69, a Francis protégé who headed the Italian bishops conference.

More on them and others below.

How are the votes taken?

A first ballot is held in the Sistine Chapel on the afternoon after the initial Mass. If no pope is elected, over the ensuing days two ballots are held each morning and two each afternoon.

The ballots are rectangular pieces of paper with the words: “Eligo in Summum Pontificem” (“I elect as supreme pontiff”) written on top, with a space for a name.

Each cardinal makes his choice, folds the paper in half, walks to the front of the chapel and declares: “I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected.”

He then puts the ballot on a tray and tips it into a receptacle.

Three designated cardinals, known as scrutineers, check each ballot to see if it is filled out correctly. Each name is read aloud and counted, with the results announced to the conclave after each round.

If no one gets the needed two-thirds of votes, the ballots are pierced with a needle and thread, which is then knotted and placed on a tray, and another round of voting is prepared.

Benedict modified some of John Paul's 1996 conclave rules, most notably excluding his vision that a pope could be elected by a simple majority if voting was stalemated. Benedict decreed that a two-thirds majority is always needed, no matter how long it takes. He did so to prevent cardinals from holding out for the 12 days foreseen by John Paul and then pushing through a candidate with a slim majority.

What about secrecy?

Benedict also tightened the oath of secrecy in the conclave, making clear that anyone who reveals what went on inside faces automatic excommunication.

In John Paul's rules, excommunication was always a possibility, but Benedict revised the oath that liturgical assistants and secretaries take to make it explicit, saying they must observe “absolute and perpetual secrecy” and explicitly refrain from using any audio or video recording devices.

They now declare: “I take this oath fully aware that an infraction thereof will incur the penalty of automatic excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See. So help me God and these Holy Gospels, which I touch with my hand.”

Cardinals also are bound by secrecy, although the threat of excommunication only hangs over them explicitly if they are found to have accepted payment for their vote, allowed secular powers to influence it, or entered into pacts with other cardinals to back a candidate.

Do we have a pope?

After the ballots are pierced, they are burned in a cylindrical stove at the end of the voting session. Black smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney means no decision; white smoke signals the cardinals have chosen a pope and that he has accepted.

Chemical cartridges are added to ensure there is no confusion over the color. To produce black smoke, a cartridge containing potassium perchlorate, anthracene — the component of coal tar — and sulfur is burned with the ballots. For white smoke, a cartridge of potassium chlorate, lactose and chloroform resin is burned with the ballots.

Bells also are rung to signal the election of a pope for further clarity.

The new pope is introduced from the loggia overlooking St. Peter's Square with the words, “Habemus Papam!” (“We have a pope!”) and his chosen papal name. The new pope then emerges and gives his first blessing.

Which cardinals are seen as contenders to be the next pope?

A popular saying in Vatican circles is that if you “enter a conclave as pope, you leave as a cardinal”.

It implies the sacred and secretive process is no popularity contest or campaign, but rather the divinely inspired election of Christ's Vicar on Earth by the princes of the church.

Still, there are always front-runners, known as the ‘papabile’, who have at least some of the qualities considered necessary to be pope — much like those depicted in last year's Oscar-nominated film Conclave.

Any baptised Catholic male is eligible, though only cardinals have been selected since 1378. The winner must receive at least two-thirds of the vote from those cardinals under age 80 and thus eligible to participate.

Pope Francis, who died Monday, appointed the vast majority of electors, often tapping men who share his pastoral priorities, which suggests continuity rather than rupture.

Anyone trying to handicap the outcome should remember that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was considered too old to be elected pope in 2013 at age 76 and that Karol Wojtyla wasn't on any front-runner lists going into the 1978 conclave that elected him Pope John Paul II.

Some possible candidates:

Cardinal Peter Erdo

Erdo, 72, the 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.

In that capacity, Erdo got to know many African cardinals because the council hosts regular sessions with African bishops' conferences. Erdo had even more exposure when he helped organise Francis' 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

Marx, 71, the archbishop of Munich and Freising, was chosen by Francis as a key adviser in 2013. Marx 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.

Marx 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

Ouellet, 80, of Canada, led the Vatican's influential bishops office for over a decade, overseeing the key clearinghouse for potential candidates to head dioceses around the world.

Francis kept Ouellet 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, Ouellet still selected pastorally minded bishops to reflect Francis' belief that bishops should “smell like the sheep” of their flock.

Ouellet 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 over 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 also could have given him lots of otherwise confidential and possibly compromising information about fellow cardinals.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin

Parolin, 70, of Italy, has been Francis' 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 a 2021 trial of another cardinal and nine others.

A former ambassador to Venezuela, Parolin knows the Latin American church well. He would be seen as someone who would continue in Francis' 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 Parolin has managed the Vatican bureaucracy, he has no real pastoral experience.

His ties to the London scandal, in which his office lost tens of millions of dollars to bad deals and shady businessmen, could also count against him.

Cardinal Robert Prevost

The idea of an American pope has long been taboo, given the geopolitical power already wielded by the United States. But the Chicago-born Prevost, 69, 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.

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, Prevost's comparative youth could count against him, however, if his brother cardinals don't want to commit to a pope who might reign for another two decades.

Cardinal Robert Sarah

Sarah, 79, of Guinea, the retired head of the Vatican's liturgy office, was long considered the best hope for an African pope. Beloved of conservatives, Sarah would signal a return to the doctrinaire and liturgically minded papacies of John Paul II and Benedict.

Sarah, who had previously headed the Vatican's charity office Cor Unum, clashed on several occasions with Francis, never 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 while 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' own teaching.

Francis dismissed Benedict's secretary and, several months later, retired Sarah after he turned 75. Even Sarah's supporters lamented the episode for hurting his papal chances.

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn

Schoenborn, 80, the 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' 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.

Schoenborn's parents divorced when he was a teen, 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.

Schoenborn 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

Tagle, 67, of the Philippines, would appear to be Francis’ 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 evangelization office. 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 — Tagle 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

Zuppi, 69, the 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.

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.

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, 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 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.

His family had strong institutional ties: Zuppi's 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.