Who will be the next pope? The decision will be made by 133 cardinals who begin meeting in conclave from 16:30 (14:30GMT) in the 15th Century Sistine Chapel. The cardinals, all under 80, will debate and then vote for their preferred candidate until a single name secures the support of two-thirds of them.

All 133 cardinals eligible to elect Pope Francis’s successor have arrived in Rome for the conclave. They will take their oaths to observe ‘absolute and perpetual secrecy’ in the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday,

One hundred and thirty-three cardinals are sequestering themselves behind the Vatican’s medieval walls for the start of a conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis.

The potential influence of the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion Catholics attracts the attention of the secular world as well.