Even though cardinals don’t campaign for the job, there are always front-runners going into a conclave to choose the next pope. These candidates, known as “papabile,” have what are regarded to be the qualities to be pope. While any baptized Roman Catholic male is eligible, only cardinals have been selected since 1378. The winner must receive at least two-thirds of the vote from those cardinals who are under age 80 and thus eligible to participate. The sacred and secretive process is no popularity contest, but rather considered to be the divinely inspired election of Christ’s Vicar on Earth by the princes of the church.

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, head of the CEI (Italian Conference of Bishops), welcomes parishioners after celebrating Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Moscow, on June 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

Cardinal Luis Tagle appears in the Basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome for the liturgy of the ashes presided over by Pope Francis on Ash Wednesday on Feb. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, FIle)

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, left, and German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller arrive for the morning session of the synod on the family, a two-week meeting of 200 cardinals and bishops from around the world, at the Vatican on Oct. 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

Cardinal Robert Sarah appears for the presentation of Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke’s book Divine Love Made Flesh, in Rome, on Oct. 14, 2015. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

New Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, poses for a photo at the end of the consistory where Pope Francis elevated 21 new cardinals in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Saturday, Sept. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca, file)

Cardinal Marc Ouellet arrives for a meeting at the Vatican on March 11, 2013. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

Cardinal Pietro Parolin attends at the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Catholic missionaries in China from an Italian religious order meeting, in Milan, Italy, on Oct. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Cardinal Peter Erdo celebrates the Christmas Day Mass in Esztergom Basilica in the City of Esztergom, 51 kms northwest of Budapest, Hungary, on Dec. 25, 2016. (Attila Kovacs/MTI via AP)

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx arrives for a morning session of a two-week synod on family issues at the Vatican, o, Oct. 6, 2014. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.