Who will be the next pope?

I watched the film ‘Conclave' over the weekend. It seemed a great time to learn more about the election of a pope.

Yesterday afternoon the latest conclave began behind the closed doors of the Sistine Chapel. All cardinals under the age of 80 are allowed to vote on who should be the next pontiff.

The cardinals are now barred from contact with the outside world and little will be known about how the voting goes until a new pope is elected.

Who that will be is far from certain as the race to succeed Francis is seen as wide open.

There are a few favourites from among the 133 cardinals but it’s not at all clear yet as to how the voting will go.

Conclaves can take place over several days or even years, with multiple votes held before a contender wins the necessary three-quarters majority to become pope. Voting happens four times daily after the first vote yesterday evening, with two votes in the morning and two in the evening.

Francis appointed cardinals from countries that had never had them before, such as Haiti, South Sudan and Myanmar, making this conclave the most geographically diverse in the church's 2,000 year history, with cardinals from 70 countries.

It seems that many of the 23 cardinals from Asia voting in the conclave planned to vote as a block.

Voting is an interesting process in that nothing actually changes during the voting.

There are no excluded candidates so the field remains the same - the only thing that changes is who the cardinals vote for.

‘Conclave' is an election film and it shows the interesting dynamics at play as various hopeful cardinals attempt to win votes and position themselves as reforming or traditional figures to appeal to different bases.

The film is extremely dramatic in terms of how the voting plays out with various protagonists suffering as sins from their past are suddenly revealed and their support falls away.

But since no candidates are ever formally excluded, as happens in Irish elections, the system needs cardinals to change their vote to another candidate. Reaching a three quarters majority requires a huge amount of cardinals to vote for the same candidate. It’s a very interesting dynamic!

After each round of voting cardinals' ballots are burned until a new pope is picked. Black smoke indicates that the required majority for a new pope has not been found while white smoke means that a pope has been elected. By the time this goes to print, a new pope may have been elected!