Tensions over the late Pope Francis’s legacy will simmer in the Sistine Chapel from Wednesday, as cardinals begin a conclave to elect the next leader of the world’s 1.4bn Catholics.
The 133 participating cardinals from more than 70 countries have assembled in Rome, with sharply conflicting opinions on Francis’s efforts to reform the church. They will be sequestered in the Vatican, cut off from the outside world, until they make their choice.
“This is a referendum on Francis’s papacy,” said Oxford university historian Miles Pattenden, author of Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy. “Cardinals are working out whether they think things have gone well in the last 12 years and what needs to be changed.”
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