Catholic cardinals will meet on May 7 to start voting for a new pope, the Vatican announced on Monday, a week after the death of Pope Francis.
So-called “Princes of the Church” under the age of 80 will meet in the Sistine Chapel to choose a new religious leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
The date was decided at meeting of cardinals of all ages early Monday, two days after the funeral of Francis, who died on April 21 aged 88.
The Church’s 252 cardinals were called back to Rome after the Argentine’s death, although only 135 are eligible to vote in the conclave.
They hail from all corners of the globe and many of them do not know each other.
But they already had four meetings last week, so-called “general congregations”, where they began to get better acquainted.
Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, 83, a former head of the Italian bishops’ conference, said there was a “beautiful, fraternal atmosphere”.
Francis was laid to rest on Saturday with a funeral and burial ceremony that drew 400,000 people to St Peter’s Square and beyond, including royalty, world leaders and ordinary pilgrims.
On Sunday, about 70,000 mourners filed past his marble tomb in the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome, after the “pope of the poor” opted to be buried outside the Vatican’s walls (channels)
