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It’s Danny Kind, and he’s not even Catholic. But he’s in a college class that simulated the conclave of 1492. (There were costumes, bribes and Oreos.)

Cardinal Mario Grech comes from Malta, but is known to cardinals around the world for his role as the secretary general of an advisory body of bishops.

Cardinals have talked about Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, as someone who could have a steady, bureaucratic hand on the church’s wheel.

Cardinal Luis Tagle of the Philippines is known as the “Asian Francis.” But he has been criticized for not being vocal enough about his country’s brutal drug war and clerical sex abuse.

Crucial meetings will be held this week in which contenders begin jockeying in earnest for the job of leading the Roman Catholic Church.