The next pope

So, who will be the next pope? Everyone has their own opinion and bookmakers are laying odds......

The Canadian Press
Feb. 12, 2013

MONTREAL -- Word that a Canadian cardinal is a presumed contender to succeed Pope Benedict has been met with a mixed response in his own Quebec backyard.

Advocates for victims of sexual abuse by priests and even a member of the clergy aren't quite in Marc Cardinal Ouellet's cheering section.

The idea of a global icon emerging from here has stirred the local imagination.

But that excitement is tempered by the fact that Ouellet's home province has become intensely secular and even anti-clerical over the years.

Rev. Raymond Gravel says amid this decline the Catholic church should be looking for a pope who has worked closely to the world's poor -- not another theologian.

The former Bloc Quebecois MP says he doesn't know if Ouellet fits this bill.

Ouellet is being touted as one of the likeliest successors -- perhaps even the favourite -- to take over from Pope Benedict.

Phillipines Catholics hope, pray for Asia's first pope

MANILA (REUTERS)

Feb. 13, 2013 - With attention turning from Europe to the "new" world, worshippers in the Philippines prayed quietly and took to social media on Tuesday in the hope their cardinal might be chosen as the next leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.

Many Catholics in the Philippines, the largest Christian community in Asia, were shocked by Pope Benedict's resignation, including their charismatic leader, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle.

African papal contender wants change

VATICAN CITY
The Grio

VATICAN CITY (AP) — One of Africa’s brightest hopes to be the next pope, Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, says the time is right for a pontiff from the developing world, and that he’s up for the job “if it’s the will of God.”

In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, the day after Pope Benedict XVI announced he would soon resign, Turkson said the “young churches” of Africa and Asia have now become solid enough that they have produced “mature clergymen and prelates that are capable of exercising leadership also of this world institution.”