Who will be the next pope? The decision could have a profound impact on the Catholic Church and the world's 1.4 billion baptised Roman Catholics.

It also promises to be a highly unpredictable and open process for a host of reasons.

The College of Cardinals will meet in conclave in the Sistine Chapel to debate and then vote for their preferred candidates until a single name prevails.

With 80% of the cardinals appointed by Pope Francis himself, they are not only electing a pope for the first time, but will offer a broad global perspective.

Predict who the next pope will be at your peril.

An old Italian saying warns against putting faith, or money, in any presumed front-runner ahead of the conclave, the closed-door gathering of cardinals that picks the pontiff. It cautions: "He who enters a conclave as a pope, leaves it as a cardinal".

But here are some cardinals who are being talked about as "papabili" to succeed Pope Francis, whose death at the age of 88 was announced by the Vatican on Monday. They are listed in alphabetical order...

Pope Francis’ famous exhortation to Catholic youth just months after being elected the 266th pope of the Catholic Church in March 2013 was “Hagan lio!” — “make a mess!” Twelve years later, upon his death Easter Monday morning at age 88, it’s fair to say that Francis took his own advice, making a mess of his pontificate and leaving the Catholic Church in a state of confusion and disarray.

The bullhorn-powered war of words between satanists and Catholics boiled over into brawling and a handful of arrests Friday during an extraordinary event at the Kansas Capitol that pushed boundaries of free speech and the separation of church and state.

The organizer of a “black mass” that took place outside the Kansas state Capitol on Friday amid heavy Catholic protest was arrested shortly afterward in the Capitol building after punching a protester in the face. 

A video from local news outlet WIBW shows Michael Stewart raising his arms and chanting in the Capitol rotunda, surrounded by a number of protesters urging him to stop. A young man later identified as Marcus Schroeder attempted to snatch what appeared to be papers from Stewart’s outstretched hands. 

A physical altercation inside the Kansas Statehouse Friday ended with Capitol Police arresting Satanic church leader Michael Stewart, capping off a morning of inflammatory religious demonstration. Stewart punched a man, Marcus Jeremiah Jared Schroeder, who repeatedly attempted to rip a booklet out of his hands while he called out to Satan from the Capitol’s first-floor rotunda. Both men were taken into custody and booked into the Shawnee County Jail, records show.

Pope Francis suffered two episodes of "acute respiratory failure" on Monday, the Vatican said.

The episodes were caused by a "significant accumulation of endobronchial mucus and consequent bronchospasm," the Vatican's press office said in a brief statement.

According to doctors, acute respiratory failure indicates the pope was not responding to oxygen therapy. Endobronchial mucus means there is mucus and fluid in the deep parts of the lung or lungs,...

Despite a consistent decline in the share of adults in the United States who identified as Christians over the last 17 years, the trend appears to have slowed in the last five years of a long-term Pew Research study.

The slowdown may not last, however, as other data from Pew's third Religious Landscape Study shows America's youngest adults are significantly more likely to be unaffiliated with religion than their older counterparts, suggesting potential future declines in the "American religious landscape." 

After many years of steady decline, the share of Americans who identify as Christians shows signs of leveling off – at least temporarily – at slightly above six-in-ten, according to a massive new Pew Research Center survey of 36,908 U.S. adults.

The Religious Landscape Study (RLS) is the largest single survey the Center conducts, aiming to provide authoritative figures on the size of U.S. religious groups because the U.S. census does not collect that information.

A major new study on religious views in the United States finds – as Americans’ connection to organized religion continues to fade – there are deep divides over the appropriate role for religion in American public life, with sizable shares in favor of a more formalized role.