If you're looking for the next pope, look no further than St. Peter's Square.
The ailing Pope John Paul II was to install 30 new cardinals in a pomp-filled ceremony yesterday attended by most of the College of Cardinals, the body that has been electing popes, largely from within, since the 11th century.
As a result, many are calling yesterday's ceremony a dress rehearsal for a conclave, although figuring out who John Paul's successor will be is no easy task.
With his new nominations, John Paul has expanded the College of Cardinals to a record size that makes a future election extremely wide open and a real guessing game, Vatican watchers and cardinals themselves agree.
"It's funny, nobody is whispering `he'll be the next man,'" said Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of the Ukraine after attending a series of meetings of all cardinals last week, during John Paul's 25th anniversary celebrations.
When Pope Paul VI was elected 40 years ago, a total of 80 cardinals took part in the conclave. With the new nominations, there are 135 cardinals under the age of 80 and eligible to vote for a new pope. In fact, the body has gotten so large that cardinals wore tags with their names and home dioceses during last week's meetings at the Vatican.
When John Paul was elected in 1978, the Polish cardinal broke a 455-year-long Italian monopoly on the papacy. One of the dominant questions now is whether the cardinals will return the papacy to the Italians or look for another nationality, perhaps someone from the developing world.
The church can choose someone to be pope who is not a cardinal, but that hasn't happened in modern times.
Even before he received his red hat, Italy's Angelo Scola was dubbed "papabile." He's the patriarch of Venice, a post that produced three 20th-century popes.
Italian pundits speak of blocs being formed pitting the Italian cardinals against the Latin Americans. Some also speak of the possibility of an African pope, with speculation centering on a Vati-can-based Nigerian, Cardinal Fran-cis Arinze.
Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, says that with the Catholic church a universal church "the field is open in that sense" -- but he does exclude one nationality: Americans.
"An office like the papacy needs to be free. And to some extent even the appearance of being in some sense captured by, as we say now, the world's only superpower, would not be helpful to the mission of the church," George said.
John Paul has long left his mark on the College of Cardinals -- he has appointed all but five of those eligible to vote for his successor. But his latest batch of appointments also broadened it geographically and increased the possibility of a Third World pope.
The new group includes prelates from the Sudan, Nigeria and India, where the church faces challenges from Muslims and Hindus.
Archbishop Anthony Olubunmi Okogie, Nigeria's new cardinal, said in a news conference before leaving Lagos for Rome that the pope has given African countries a greater voice.
"The Holy Father always looks around to make sure that every part of the human race within the church is recognized in the College of Cardinals. And he's accomplished it really well," Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, said in an interview last week.
Asked what type of pope John Paul would like to see, McCarrick gave a typical response for a cardinal: "There are 109 people who cannot answer that question, and I'm one of them. Next week there are going to be 135. So you've got to get to those guys before then."
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