At private dinners throughout Rome and at formal gatherings of hundreds of cardinals, talk among church leaders of who will next lead the church has certainly already begun.
The pope has died. Hundreds of cardinals are gathering in Rome. The secret ballot for a successor hasn’t begun. But among church leaders, talk about who will next lead the 2,000-year-old church is already underway, according to experts.
Pope Francis, the first head of the Catholic Church from the Americas and a champion of people on the margins, passed away at age 88 on Easter Monday, leaving vacant his seat at the head of the ancient institution with 1.4 billion followers worldwide. Around 250 cardinals were summoned to Italy for business, including the pope’s funeral and chief among their duties — electing the 267th head of the church.
Yet, the drama of papal selection has already begun. The days before the conclave May 7 at…
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