After Pope Francis' death, focus turns to cardinals who will elect next pontiff

VATICAN CITY, April 21 (Reuters) - With the death of Pope Francis, announced by the Vatican on Monday, Roman Catholics around the globe will start speculating on who among the red-robed cardinals will succeed him.

Given the nature of cardinal appointments Francis made during his papacy, there will inevitably be some expectation that the Argentine pontiff's successor will be another non-European, and that like Francis he could be another progressive, opposed to the Church's conservative wing.

However, the election process that will take place once Francis is buried is highly secretive and nothing will be certain until white smoke pouring from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel tells the world that a new pope has been picked.

Cardinals are a pontiff's closest collaborators, running key departments at the Vatican and dioceses around the world. When a pope dies or resigns, those cardinals aged under 80 are eligible to enter a secret conclave to choose the new head of the nearly 1.4 billion-member Roman Catholic Church from among themselves.

The complex vote will reveal if the current cardinals, most of them put there by Francis, believe his embrace of liberal social values and his progressive reform agenda have gone too far and whether a period of retrenchment is needed.

The cardinals will set the date for the start of the conclave after they start arriving in Rome in the coming days.

Only a pope can appoint cardinals and the type of men he chooses can leave his stamp on the Church long after his reign - because of their s...
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