VATICAN CITY: Each morning brings the same scene: a procession of scarlet-capped cardinals off to plan the conclave that will pick the papal successor. As the days tick down to the start of the process April 18, the complexity of their job is increasingly clear.

The cardinals must select someone to manage huge challenges for the Roman Catholic Church: Shrinking Mass attendance in the West; competition and coexistence with Islam; demands for more anti-poverty activism in developing countries and the fallout from sex scandals.

The names emerging as possible successors to His Holiness Pope John Paul II show how wide the net is being cast when the biggest and most diverse conclave in history opens a week from Monday.

There are Latin Americans considered credible contenders for the first time: Cardinal Claudio Hummes of Brazil and Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras. There is also a Vatican official from Africa: Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria.

Northern Europeans are mentioned, led by Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Austria and German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. And, of course, Italians: Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, among others.

“We enter the conclave cold – without a favourite,” said Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec.

That could change.

Cardinals are always informally debating, negotiating, cultivating alliances and staking out positions. Such maneuvering intensified as the Pope’s health declined and the coming week will force cardinals to distill everything down to a short list for the 265th successor to the first Pope, St Peter.

There are no straw polls or surveys to predict what will happen in the secret process which culminates with the famous Latin declaration: “Habemus papam” – “We have a pope”. A cautionary tale is how the stunned crowd in St Peter’s Square cried out “Who?” when the name of the new Pope was announced in October 1978: an archbishop from Krakow, Poland, named Karol Wojtyla.

The upcoming conclave adds even more wild cards. The 115 prelates from 52 nations expected at the conclave represent the most international papal selection since the College of Cardinals was given sole authority and responsibility nearly 1,000 years ago. The Vatican said a cardinal from Mexico and another from the Philippines will not attend due to illness.

The only guarantee is that cardinals will have a chance to express their views on what the church needs in the 21st century. After that, they must wait to see which direction the conclave moves.

The cardinals open the gathering with a prayer to seek guidance from the Holy Spirit. Then it will be the strength of the speeches, lobbying and coalition-building within the Sistine Chapel that sets the course.

Ratzinger summed up the weeks ahead with the only undeniable fact: “Someone will be picked pope”.

From Latin America – with 21 cardinals – church leaders will likely press for greater attention to fight poverty and halt the advance of Protestant and Evangelical churches siphoning away Roman Catholics.

Hummes, who leads the large Sao Paulo archdiocese in Brazil, used his first speech in 1998 in the post to blame globalised market-driven economies for “misery and poverty affecting millions around the world”. He has not mellowed. In March, he said the church’s priority should be “solidarity with the poor”.

However, Hummes is careful to keep his distance from more radical interpretations such as “liberation theology” – a social justice movement which gained momentum in the 1970s and was later denounced by Pope John Paul for being too closely tied to Marxism. Hummes, 70, also appears to stick closely to the church’s opposition to condom use and abortion.

The spokesman for his archdiocese, Monsignor Dario Bevilacqua, said Hummes wants to reverse the church’s “superficial” efforts to curb the growth of evangelical groups. His papal chances get a boost by sheer numbers: Brazil has the world’s largest Catholic population with about 150 million followers.

Another possible papal contender, Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, brings similar calls for a church more sensitive to economic inequities and debt relief for poor nations.

“Before we suffered the East-West conflict – the Cold War – but now the conflict is North-South,” he was quoted as saying in 2002. “It’s not ideological. It’s poverty that creates the conflict today.”

As archbishop of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa since 1993, he has become a prominent and moderate voice on Latin American church commissions and has the multi-lingual abilities that have become a papal prerequisite. He also shares the late Pope’s vigour. He is a pilot and sticks to an exercise regime. However, he is only 62 – which could scare off those cardinals who are not so keen on the possibility of another very long papacy.

Another Latin American name which has gained some papal momentum – Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the 68-year-old archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina – presents some complications for the conclave. There are health concerns since he lost a lung in an operation as a teenager. Moreover, he is a Jesuit – a powerful order with a history of friction with Vatican authority.

Any serious consideration of a Latin American candidate could hinge on the 11 US cardinals, who may favour moving the papacy to their hemisphere for the first time. The Americans, however, have not given any indication about their preferences and have even said they will not deliberately vote as a bloc.

Even some Italians sense the conclave may not favour returning the papacy to its historic caretakers.

Cardinal Fiorenzo Angelini, a former Vatican health official, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera that the conclave cannot ignore the “hard numerical facts” that Latin America holds about 40 per cent of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics.

“With Pope John Paul’s pontificate, our perception of the church has been expanded to a more realistic world view,” said Angelini, who at 89 is too old to vote. Only cardinals under 80 can join the conclave.

The age limit – imposed during the 1963-1978 papacy of Pope Paul VI – may further reduce Italy’s prospects of reclaiming the papacy when the 10 foot wooden doors groan shut at the Sistine Chapel.

The late Pope greatly expanded the cardinals’ international reach as older cardinals, many Italian, hit the 80 mark. Italy will be bringing 20 cardinals into the conclave – a sizeable number but not big enough to push the gathering in one direction.

Some analysts cast doubts on the continued importance of national blocs. “In this age, the cardinals travel around the world and meet each other all the time,” said Gregory Tobin, whose 2003 book “Selecting the Pope” examines trends in papal elections. “They don’t think along national lines so much anymore.”

The most discussed Italian papabile – the local name for likely papal candidates – is perhaps Tettamanzi, the archbishop of Milan. His strength in the conclave comes from the aura of Pope John Paul II. Tettamanzi, 71 – a former theology professor – was often consulted by the Pope and helped draft important encyclicals on church morality in the mid-1990s: defending core doctrines and denouncing a “culture of death” such as abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment.

However, this could prove a liability if the conclave seeks to put a different stamp on the papacy. There are questions whether he possesses the charisma or commanding presence that is needed in a media-driven age.

Re, whose last name means “king” in Italian, is even more of a Vatican insider.

He has worked for many years in key posts in the Vatican’s diplomatic service, giving him the international experience and internal clout which could be attractive to the conclave. In 2000, he was put in charge of the influential office that decides on career paths for clergy.

He brings a reputation as a troubleshooter and compromiser who seeks church stability instead of bold gestures. He also once served in the Vatican’s diplomatic post in Iran, which gives him some stature for cardinals hoping to advance Christian-Muslim dialogue.

A possible sign of his task-oriented style came in a 2002 letter to the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops at the height of the scandals over alleged sex abuse by priests: “It appears necessary to devote every available resource to restoring the public image of the Catholic priesthood”.

Another Italian, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone – a Vatican official before becoming archbishop of Genoa in 2002 – appears to have a following. However, the 70-year-old presents a large target for ridicule since he called for a boycott of the fictional mega-seller The Da Vinci Code because he feels that its story of church intrigue confuses Catholics.

“No one knows how the conclave will go but the Italians do not have an obvious strong candidate,” Tobin said.

The rest of Europe also offers some difficult choices for the conclave.

A serious contender could be Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna. Few entering the conclave can match his mix of qualities: intellectual achievements, an engaging speaking style as well as an ability to bridge divides between church moderates and conservatives.

He is also an expert in Byzantine Christianity, which could be important among cardinals seeking to continue mending the nearly 1,000-year schism with the Orthodox churches. This was among the priorities in the final decade of John Paul’s papacy. The Pope made groundbreaking trips to mostly Orthodox nations, apologised for Western Crusades and returned revered icons as well as saintly relics. One major hole remains – Pope John Paul never reached the crucial Orthodox stronghold of Russia.

At the age of 60, Schoenborn may be considered too young. He also is pinned down at home with the damage control from a seminary sex scandal, which included a find of 40,000 photos and videos of child pornography and seminarians kissing and fondling each other or older instructors.

Danneels, the archbishop of Brussels, possesses the charm and cosmopolitan ease that cardinals may want in a Pope _ particularly if the discussions concentrate on ways to confront the rise of radical Islam.

Danneels’ election would also constitute a frontal attack on another crisis for the church – apathy across much of northern Europe. Church attendance has been dropping for decades in many countries and seminaries are struggling with a shortage of candidates. “There are many big picture challenges facing the church but it’s for nothing if it is not re-energised at its core in Europe,” said Fernando Segovia, a theologian at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Danneels, 71, presents a choice that could favour reforms including increased roles for women in church affairs and decentralisation. This, however, could collide with conservatives.

“Today the power structure of the church is male,” he was quoted as saying in 2003, “but it does not necessarily have to remain that way”.

Impasses in the conclave could point back toward one of Pope John Paul’s chief confidants – Ratzinger, who will turn 78 two days before the conclave opens. Since 1981, Ratzinger has led the Vatican’s group which oversees doctrine. It gave him a tough and inflexible reputation but was considered a forward-thinking theologian in the 1960s. He also softened his image with an eloquent homily for the Pope at his funeral on Friday.

Among the remarkable gathering of world and religious leaders who heard those words were many from the Muslim world. Pope John Paul made outreach to Islam a hallmark of the end of his papacy, becoming the first Pope to enter a mosque during a May 2001 trip to Syria.

How the Vatican continues this outreach may be among the central themes of the conclave. On that topic, one name stands out: Arinze of Nigeria. Arinze, 72, was called to the Vatican in 1984 to direct interfaith dialogue at a time when it was a lower priority. His star has risen along with the need to maintain contact with other faiths.

The Vatican now looks with alarm at its congregations and missions in Africa as well as Asia. In Arinze’s homeland, Muslim-Christian clashes have claimed thousands of lives since the late 1990s. Muslim rebels resist US-aided crackdowns in the Philippines, Asia’s only predominantly Catholic country. Dozens of Catholic and other Christian missionaries have been attacked and slain across the Muslim world.

“This may be the big, geopolitical issue for the Vatican in the coming decades,” said John Voll, director of the Georgetown Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding. “They need a Pope who can handle these complexities.”