Arinze is said to take a hardline position on abortion and contraception and denounces homosexuality. Other third world favorites are Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez, 62, from Honduras, who teamed up with Bono to campaign against third-world debt, and Cardinal Claudio Hummes of Brazil.
However, some senior members of the hierarchy fear that, with Christianity's influence on the wane in the West, there is a powerful need for a European Pope to be appointed to arrest decline.
One name mentioned is 71-year-old Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Brussels, but he is thought too liberal. Meanwhile, the more conservative members of the European camp admire 58-year-old Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna. Schonborn, though, suffers from his relative youth. John Paul II has served more than double the length of time of the average papacy, and the cardinals believe the next pope should not be in the role for so long. The present pope's longevity has meant he has been able to shore up his power base by surrounding himself with the like-minded.
It has meant that, even when his health has been ravaged by Parkinson's and related breathing problems, the pope's position has been unassailable, his invisible hold over the church, if anything, strengthened by his suffering.
"What's important in my mind is to see that the church functions. Nothing has stopped," said Andre Vingt-Trois, the archbishop of Paris, emphasizing that the pope is still very much in charge.
Indeed he is. Regardless of who succeeds him, long after John Paul II has died, his influence will linger.
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