What is the new pope named?

Following the death of Pope Francis, as the Vatican announced on Monday, Roman Catholics around the world will begin to speculate on which of the red-robed cardinals will succeed him.

Given the nature of the cardinal appointments that Francis has made during his papacy, there will undoubtedly be expectations that the Argentine pope's successor will be another non-European, and that, like Francis, he will be another progressive, the opposite of the conservative wing of the church.

However - the process of electing a pope, which will begin after Francis is buried - is extremely secretive and nothing will be certain until white smoke rises from the Sistine Chapel chimney to show the world that a new pope has been chosen.

The Vatican announced that Francis will be buried on Saturday at 10:00 a.m.

Cardinals are the pope's closest associates, heading important departments in the Vatican and dioceses around the world. When a pope dies or resigns, cardinals under the age of 80 gather in a secret council to elect from among their ranks the new head of the nearly 1.4 billion-member Roman Catholic Church.

The complicated vote will show whether the current cardinals, most of whom were appointed by Francis, believe that his embrace of liberal social values ​​and his progressive reform agenda have gone too far, and whether a period of moderation is necessary.

The cardinals will set the date for the start of the secret council once they begin arriving in Rome in the coming days.

Only the pope can appoint cardinals, and the kind of men he chooses can leave their mark on the church long after his leadership – because of their status as senior clerics and because any of them could become pope.

As of April 21, there are a total of 252 cardinals, 135 of them cardinal voters under the age of 80, according to data released by the Vatican. 108 of the voters were appointed by Francis, 22 by his predecessor Benedict and five by John Paul II.

Cardinals are "created" in ceremonies called consistories, where they are given a ring, a red biretta – a square hat – and swear allegiance to the pope, even if it means shedding blood or sacrificing their lives, as the color red symbolizes.

Pope Francis held 10 consistories, and with each one, he increased the likelihood that his successor would be another non-European, as he strengthened the church in countries where it is either a small minority or where it is growing faster than in the largely stagnant West.

For many centuries, the majority of cardinals were Italian, except for a period when the papacy was based in Avignon between 1309 and 1377, when many were French.

The internationalization of the College of Cardinals began in earnest under Pope Paul VI (1963–1978). It was greatly accelerated by Pope John Paul II (1978–2005), a Pole who was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years.

While Europe still has the largest share of voting cardinals, with about 39 percent, that is down from 52 percent in 2013 when Francis became the first pope from Latin America. The second-largest group of voters is from Asia and Oceania, with about 20 percent.

Francis appointed more than 20 cardinals from countries that had never had a cardinal before, almost all from developing countries such as Rwanda, Cape Verde, Tonga, Myanmar, Mongolia and South Sudan, or countries with very few Catholics such as Sweden.

In some cases, he deliberately bypassed vacancies in major European cities that traditionally had cardinals, to emphasize that the church could not be so Europe-centric.

In other countries, such as the United States, he bypassed dioceses like Los Angeles and San Francisco, apparently because they had conservative archbishops.

Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington since March, is seen as a progressive and vocal ally of Francis' priestly approach to social issues, such as environmental protection and a more welcoming approach to LGBTQ Catholics.

The more cardinals a pope appoints during his leadership, the greater the likelihood that his successor will be someone who shares similar views on church and social issues.

However, this is not always the case, as cardinals may elect a person theologically different from his predecessor, but who is considered the most suitable candidate for internal ecclesiastical reasons or for the historical time when his appointment is made.

Pope Benedict was chosen to succeed Pope John Paul II largely because he had worked with him for two decades and the cardinals wanted continuity.

But many of the same cardinals felt that an "outsider" was needed to succeed Benedict, who resigned in 2013 after the "Vatileaks" scandal revealed a dysfunctional internal administration, largely led by senior Italian clerics.

At the same time, many cardinals clearly felt that the future of Catholicism lay beyond aging Europe, so they elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina as their pope – the first non-European pope in nearly 13 centuries.

Although cardinals who have reached the age of 80 cannot enter the secret council, they can still influence its outcome. They are allowed to participate in meetings called General Congregations that take place on the eve of the beginning of the secret council, and where a profile of the qualities that the next pope should possess is formed./ REL