During his time as pontiff, Pope Francis, interested in giving peripheries more of a voice, reconstructed the College of Cardinals, diversifying it from its previously Eurocentric make-up.
What does this suggest?
A good change that Francis’s legacy and philosophy will continue.
However, despite rumours fluttering around the media, it’s hard to predict who will be elected via this topic-secret process, because cardinals are known to have nuanced and varying political viewpoints themselves about political issues.
Therefore, only the final result will prove if the Vatican is or is not interested in acting as a mediator of the political status quo of the world’s great powers – and how.
In any case, the decision-making will begin tomorrow, when the College gathers in the Sistine Chapel at 16:30.
It will involve debating and several rounds of voting, expected to last around two days.
The affair has not been without scandal: one high-placed cardinal, shunned by Francis and legally convicted of embezzlement and fraud, Giovanni Angelo Becciu, has already withdrawn from the conclave, after previously having launched an appeal of support for right to elect within it.
