The presence of "Dominique Mathieu", the Catholic Archbishop of Tehran-Isfahan, at the Congregation of Cardinals

"Dominique Mathieu", the Catholic Archbishop of Tehran-Isfahan, will be present at the Congregation of Cardinals to elect the future leader of the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis, the leader of the world's Catholics, died on Monday morning in front of thousands of Christians after delivering his final sermon on Easter Sunday. After the Vatican began special plans for his funeral, consultations began to choose his successor.

After nine days of mourning, the Catholic Church will hold a "conclave" of cardinals, or "conclave," which will begin in secret in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The participants will be responsible for electing the next pope. By law, 138 of the 252 cardinal electors will be present at the conclave, and cardinals must be under 80 years old to participate in the secret ballot to elect a new pope.

According to the rules, it usually takes 15 to 20 days to vote and elect a new pope, and there is no specific rule on how long it takes. There must also be a maximum of four rounds of voting per day until a cardinal can obtain a two-thirds majority.

The Catholic Church will be leaderless until a new pope is elected, but in the meantime, the College of Cardinals will jointly govern the church. The possible candidates for the new pope are:

Peter Ordo, Cardinal Ordo and Archbishop of Budapest, was elected President of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences in 2005 and 2011. He is 72 years old and a familiar face among African cardinals.

Dominique Mathieu, a Belgian priest and Catholic Archbishop of Tehran-Isfahan, has also made history as a cardinal. While the Catholic population in Iran is very small, for the first time an official representative from Tehran will participate in the conclave of cardinals, who are responsible for choosing the future leader of the Catholic Church (the Pope). His appointment as a candidate is a sign of the Vatican's openness to small Catholic communities in the Middle East and an emphasis on the importance of interfaith dialogue in today's global context.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, 71, the former president of the German Bishops' Conference, was a proponent of the dialogue in the German church that began in 2020 as a response to the clergy sex abuse scandal, and was sceptical of conservatives who saw the process as a threat to church unity, as it raised issues such as celibacy, homosexuality and the ordination of women. In 2021, he announced his intention to resign as archbishop of the German church in response to reports of abuse that had occurred before him in the German church, but Pope Francis did not accept his resignation.

Cardinal Marc Ouellette, an 80-year-old Canadian, led the Vatican's influential Office of the Bishops for more than a decade, overseeing the general office for selecting potential candidates for the presidency of bishops around the world.

Pietro Parolin, a 70-year-old Italian cardinal who has been Pope Francis' foreign secretary since 2014 and is considered a leading contender for the papacy due to his position in the Catholic Church hierarchy, is also involved in the Vatican's failed London property investment scandal but has not been charged with any crime. He is also a former Vatican ambassador to Venezuela.

Cardinal Robert Prevost, a 69-year-old American from Chicago, has long been a taboo subject for a pope from the United States. He has extensive experience as a missionary and then archbishop of Peru, and is now the powerful Vatican governor responsible for vetting candidates for episcopal office around the world. He was sent by Pope Francis in 2014 to head the diocese of Chiclayo in Peru, a position he will hold until 2023, when he will take up his current post in Rome.

Cardinal Robert Sara, 79, from Guinea, is the retired head of the Vatican's Office of Worship and a favorite of church conservatives.

Christoph Schoenborn, 80, is the archbishop of Vienna, Austria. He was a disciple of Pope Benedict and has a knack for appealing to conservatives in the church. His parents divorced when he was a teenager, and he has opposed Pope Francis’s advocacy of civil divorce and remarriage for Catholics as a way of development, drawing opposition from some conservatives in the church. He also has his own take on the issue of divorce.

Luis Antonio Tagle, a 67-year-old Filipino cardinal of Chinese descent who is known for his emotional outbursts when talking about his childhood, was brought to Rome by Pope Francis to head the Vatican's missionary office, which is responsible for addressing the needs of the Catholic Church in many parts of Asia and Africa.