College of Cardinals to elect new pope amid Catholic crisis of faith

Wednesday morning, 133 cardinals will file into the Sistine Chapel

to cast their votes for the next leader of the Catholic Church. Pope Francis was laid to rest on April 26th

Since then, the College of Cardinals has been meeting in what is known as general congregations

It's a chance for them to meet each other, to lobby for their picks

and discuss what direction they feel the church needs to go in. Some of them, you know, they don't really know each other very well

I imagine the cardinal from Australia might have never met a lot of the other people there

And so they get to know one another a little bit. Grant Kaplan is a professor of theology at St. Louis University

He says the choice is not as cut and dry as you might think. And once they walk through the doors of the Sistine Chapel, they are cut off from the outside world

This means no technology. They're trying as much as possible to preserve the integrity of the process

But that does not keep politicians from lobbying before the conclave. Mario Cuomo, who had been a prominent politician in the 80s, I think he was governor of New York

he had tried to influence some of the cardinals by making a pitch for Cardinal Dolan St Louis own Cardinal Dolan who was Archbishop of New York and Cardinal And this was just seen as having a very negative effect

because Italian politics are not the same as American politics. And someone from the outside

lobbying is just like a death knell in a certain sense. With Cuomo as governor at the time

his wish for the Archbishop of New York's elevation was more about New York than the Vatican

However, that's not the only reason Cardinal Timothy Dolan, or for that matter

any other American, will be elevated to the church's highest office. The American church, even though America is a large country

it is small in terms of number of Catholics compared to other countries

There are 10 cardinals who have American citizenship who will be voting

So it's not a tiny block, but if you think in general of American influence in the world, to have 10 out of 130-something, it's not a power block

Kaplan says there's a better chance the next pope could be Italian

On a numbers game, it would seem like Italians would be favored

No one over there is really speaking Latin anymore So Italian is also the language that people communicate in the common language And that I assume would give Italians a leg up Claire Giangrave a Vatican

correspondent for Religion News Service, agrees. Among the Italian candidates, one has to consider

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi. He is not only the head of the Italian bishops and has that weight behind

him, but he has also been chosen and tapped personally by Pope Francis to bring his message

of peace in Ukraine. However, with 72% of Catholics non-European or non-North American

the Cardinals may go with a choice more representative of the majority. I have met

Cardinal Taglay, who was the Archbishop of Manila. He believes Cardinal Taglay might be the best

option. Taglay's mother is Chinese-Filipino. And he is sometimes compared, sometimes called

the Asian Pope Francis. I would be curious to see whether he'll be considered in part because

Asia is a pretty big part of the world and the Philippines is a very strong Catholic country

but it's one where there have been some tensions with Muslims in the country

And keeping the majority is key when so many are leaving the church. In America alone

a Pew research study shows for every 100 people who join the Catholic Church 840 leave Finding a way to make the church attractive to people or make the message of Christianity

attractive to people who'd never heard it or never been exposed to it before is one thing

But also people who, you know, for whatever reason, were raised Catholic

but at some point stopped going and never thought of going back

Should the conclave seek a more conservative pope, Gian Grave points to the Archbishop of Budapest

He is loyal to the tradition of the church, but at the same time he's been sort of media shy

avoiding controversy while maintaining a very good relationship with Pope Francis and the Vatican

No matter who is chosen, Kaplan says the next pontiff must be an exceptional communicator

I would encourage people who are nervous about this just to be patient. And if you are a person of faith, to think that somehow God and not just

these 135 cardinals also played a role in the selection of the Pope. And so maybe a little bit

of humility or wait and see attitude would help. I'm Craig DeGrelli. For more news told with the

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