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Who could be the next pope?
Pope Francis, 88, the oldest pope in over a century, died Monday morning, though quiet discussions on who could succeed him have reportedly already begun.
While any male Catholic could in theory be chosen to sit in the papal seat, historically, succeeding popes have been selected from the Sacred College of Cardinals since 1378, according to Religion News Service.
Currently, there are 252 cardinals in the body who have been selected by the Holy Father to serve as his advisors and assistants.
Here is a look at some of the most likely forerunners to serve as the 267th pope, according to public reporting.
Pope Francis is seen delivering a homily during Mass with newly appointed cardinals. (Stefano Costantino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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Cardinal Pietro Parolin, 70, Italy
Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, is the highest-ranking diplomat in the Holy See – which is the governing body of the Catholic Church – and is believed to be among the cardinals most likely to be elected to the top position.
His favor among cardinals in the Sacred College, who will vote on the next pope, is due to his politically moderate position and his career in diplomacy, reported The New York Post.
Parolin, who spent part of his career in Mexico and Nicaragua, was appointed by Pope Francis in 2014 and would likely be seen as an extension of the current papacy.
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The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, attends the blessing ceremony of the newly opened reception and integration center for Ukrainian refugees during the Bishops’ Conference of Slovakia in Kosice, Slovakia, on Sept. 15, 2023. (Robert Nemeti/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, 67, Philippines
Tagle is also believed to be a frontrunner among voting cardinals and serves as the pro-prefect for the section of first evangelization of the Dicastery for Evangelization, as well as president of the Interdicasterial Commission for Consecrated Religious.
He has been dubbed the «Asian Pope Francis» particularly for their similarities when it comes to their more embracing position of the LGBTQI community than their predecessors.
In a 2015 interview, Tagle said the Church’s «severe» position on the LGBTQI community, divorcees and single mothers was doing it harm.
According to the Catholic Herald, Tagle «would be hailed by liberals, given the changing demographic of the Church.»
Pope Francis greets Philippine Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle during a ceremonial welcome at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Sept. 4, 2024. (Tiziana FabiI/AFP via Getty Images)
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Cardinal Peter Erdo, 72, Hungary
There are several conservative cardinals who are believed to be top contenders for the papacy, including Cardinal Peter Erdo, who has been critical of Francis’ position on divorce and immigration.
Erdo has argued that divorced or re-married Catholics should not be allowed to receive Holy Communion due to his position regarding the «indissolubility of marriage.»
The Catholic Herald pointed out that appointing a conservative pope following Francis’ tenure would «send a powerful message about the direction the Church would be taking.»
Erdo has also differed from Francis greatly on immigration and argued in 2015 that permitting refugees to resettle is tantamount to human trafficking.
Pope Francis greets the archbishop of Budapest, Cardinal Péter Erdő, after arriving in Budapest, Hungary, on April 28, 2023. (Vatican Media Vatican Pool/Getty Images)
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, 65, Democratic Republic of Congo
Another conservative cardinal thought to be a serious contender is Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu from the war-torn nation of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Membership of the Catholic Church in Africa is growing faster than anywhere else in the world, according to the Associated Press.
Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
The 65-year-old Ambongo controversially rejected Pope Francis’ blessing of same-sex couples by the Catholic Church. In a letter signed by other African priests, they said they refused to follow the pontiff’s declaration because such unions are «contrary to the will of God.»
Cardinal Raymond Burke, 76, United States of America
The Wisconsin native and former archbishop of St. Louis is considered to be the leading American candidate. The 76-year-old cardinal is also viewed as being from the conservative side of the Church.
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke attends the Consistory for the creation of new Cardinals led by Pope Francis at the St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, Vatican. (Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
He is a proponent of the Latin Mass, and has been critical of Pope Francis regarding the Church’s new language around artificial contraception, LGBT issues and civil marriages. Burke was made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, 69, Italy
Pope Francis meets with Cardinal Matteo Zuppi during an audience at the Apostolic Palace on Aug. 24, 2023, in Vatican City. (Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images)
Zuppi was born in Rome. He is the president of the Italian Episcopal Conference and is viewed as an insider in Francis’ Vatican, having served as the archbishop of Bologna.
The 69-year-old Zuppi is seen as being one of Pope Francis’ favorites. He was sent on a peace mission in 2023 to Ukraine, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He was also sent to meet with President Joe Biden that same year.
Zuppi was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2019.
The Vote
Of the 252 cardinals in the Sacred College, only 138 are under the age of 80 and therefore are permitted to participate in the conclave, the papal election process – though there are no age limitations for the candidate who would serve as the future pope.
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Following the death of a pope, the conclave then holds a vote, and will continue to vote, until a pope is chosen by a two-thirds majority.
At that time, the ballots will be burned with a chemical that produces white smoke, as opposed to black smoke, to alert the world that a new pope has been chosen.
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FBI subpoenas 2020 Arizona voting docs as federal push into election administration widens
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An Arizona state lawmaker revealed Monday that federal authorities subpoenaed him for records related to the 2020 election, marking the second publicly confirmed jurisdiction the Department of Justice is investigating over the matter.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, a Republican, said in a social media post he received the subpoena for material related to the state Senate’s 2020 audit last week and complied with it.
«Late last week I received and complied with a federal grand jury subpoena for records relating to the Arizona State Senate’s 2020 audit of Maricopa County,» Petersen wrote. «The FBI has the records. Any other report is fake news.»
The request represents an expansion of a federal probe tied to 2020 after the DOJ initially targeted Fulton County, Georgia. The development also comes as President Donald Trump has grown increasingly outspoken about election security in the lead-up to the 2026 midterms, renewing his attention on disputes stemming from the last presidential race.
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An election worker removes a ballot from an envelope to count and inspect the pages inside the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
Petersen made the revelation after President Donald Trump shared a Just the News report about the subpoena on Truth Social, writing, «Great!!! FBI secretly seizes election records from Arizona’s largest county as voting probe expands.»
Multiple U.S. officials confirmed the election probe to Fox News, saying the DOJ is looking at a large tranche of Arizona data from 2020 and 2024.
President Donald Trump listens during an event about the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex, Wednesday, March 4, 2026, in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)
The White House directed Fox News Digital to the FBI on Monday when asked for comment. The FBI declined to comment.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, an elected Democrat, said the new investigation was based on claims that courts and state investigators have proven wrong.
«What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry,» Mayes said in a statement. «It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies.»
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Attendees listen as Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) speaks at an «Only Citizens Vote» bus tour rally advocating passage of the SAVE Act at Upper Senate Park outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on Sept. 10, 2025. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
The subpoena comes as the president increasingly focuses on election security ahead of the 2026 midterms, telling Congress in a social media post on Sunday that he will not sign any legislation into law until it passes the SAVE America Act.
The bill’s primary purpose is to require voters nationwide to show physical identification to prove citizenship to vote in federal elections. The version of the bill Trump is pushing would also ban mail-in ballots except for the military and in other extenuating circumstances.
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Maricopa, Arizona’s most populous county, was a hotbed for accusations of voter fraud in 2020. Fulton County, Georgia, faced similar accusations, with the DOJ launching a separate investigation into the 2020 election earlier this year.
Trump lost Arizona in 2020 by about 0.3 percentage points. The president refused to concede, and his legal team brought a series of lawsuits alleging vote-counting irregularities, but none were successful.
Fox News’ David Spunt and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
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Biden-appointed judge in the hot seat after DHS fires back at ‘false’ claims about ICE facility
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The Department of Homeland Security on Monday blasted a federal judge’s order requiring it to immediately improve conditions at its ICE processing facility in Baltimore — including reducing the number of detainees held there at one time, and improving access to food, hygiene, and medical care — telling Fox News Digital that the court’s determination of any «subprime» conditions or overcrowding are «false.»
«Illegal aliens in custody are provided food, water, blankets, and hygiene products,» a spokesperson for DHS said Monday, alleging that ICE «has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens,» including access to «comprehensive» medical care.
The characterization comes hours after a federal judge in Maryland issued a preliminary injunction Monday ordering ICE to either drastically improve conditions at its Baltimore processing center or find a new facility to «humanely» and legally hold the migrants before transferring them to a longer-term detention center.
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ICE Director Todd Lyons. (Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images andJohn Moore/Getty Images )
U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin, a Biden appointee, sided with plaintiffs Monday in ruling that Baltimore’s holding center conditions are «unhygienic, unsanitary,» and ultimately, unconstitutional.
Rubin used a 67-page preliminary injunction to carefully tick through a long list of egregious conditions alleged by lawyers for plaintiffs over the last 10 months, including allegations of squalid, unsanitary holding, severe overcrowding, and a lack of medical screening, access to medical care, and necessary treatment — which the judge noted could lead to liability issues, or «in the worst-case scenario, fatalities.»
«The debated issue here is not defendants’ legitimate governmental interest; it is that defendants apparently dispense with even rudimentary decent, humane treatment of civil detainees, and so too their constitutional rights as a result,» Rubin said in the preliminary injunction, which applies to all current and future detainees at the holding facility operated by Baltimore’s ICE Field Office.
She sided with plaintiffs in ruling that the conditions in Baltimore are «unlawfully punitive» and reflect a «deliberate indifference to the health, safety, and medical needs» on behalf of the government, in violation of the Fifth Amendment and due process protections granted under the U.S. Constitution.
Rubin also rejected the notion that ICE detainees and illegal immigrants are not entitled to due process, citing the Supreme Court precedent under Zadvydas v. Davis, which holds that such protections apply to «all ‘persons’» within the U.S. «including [noncitizens], whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent.»
A DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital that migrants detained at the ICE holding center in Baltimore are granted «comprehensive» health care, including «medical, dental, and mental health services as available, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care,» and rejected claims made by plaintiffs and the judge.
«This is the best healthcare tha[t] many aliens have received in their entire lives,» the spokesperson added.
Rubin, in the court order, does not appear to back that contention.
‘BLANKIES,’ ICE TACTICS AND LUXURY JETS: TOP MOMENTS FROM NOEM’S HOUSE TESTIMONY
President Donald Trump and the logo for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are seen side-by-side in this split image. (Photos by Getty Images) (Getty Images)
«This is not a case of a prisoner lacking access to a clean toilet for a period of days, nor is it a case where a pretrial detainee cannot shower and is not provided with hygiene items …» Rubin said in the preliminary injunction, which comes after one year of status hearings, amended complaints, and declarations provided to the court from Trump administration officials and others.
«Rather, the conditions here are compounded: civilly detained people are stuffed into unclean cells by the dozens, without basic hygiene essentials, while exposed to a virtually open unclean toilet (and those detained making use of same),» Rubin said.
«These conditions woefully fail to comport with ‘contemporary standards of decency,» she continued.
DHS also rejected claims of inadequate medical care, including complaints from plaintiffs’ lawyers and cited by the court in which individuals with serious medical conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, HIV, leukemia, and broken bones were denied medications or medical attention.
Government records cited by the judge show that between February and September 2025, just eight out of 3,250 detainees held at the Baltimore ICE facility had been transported to a hospital for medical needs.
Rubin is not the first federal judge to order U.S. immigration officials to immediately improve conditions at ICE processing centers or «holding» centers across the country during Trump’s second presidential term.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) logo is seen in a federal building. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In August, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued an emergency order requiring ICE to swiftly address allegations of filthy, overcrowded cells and prolonged stays at an ICE processing facility in New York City. The following month, he slapped ICE with a more lasting preliminary injunction seeking to codify those changes.
And in Minnesota, a federal judge last month issued a temporary restraining order requiring ICE to grant detainees at its Whipple Federal Building holding center access to counsel, attorney-client visits, and a 72-hour notice period before transferring detainees out of the state.
The administration has not yet indicated whether it will appeal the judge’s ruling. Still, DHS officials sharply rejected the allegations of improper treatment, telling Fox News Digital that being in detention «is a choice.»
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«We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App,» they said, noting that the U.S. «is offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport,» as former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem noted during congressional testimony last week.
«If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return,» they added.
donald trump,politics,federal courts,immigration,supreme court,joe biden,migrant crime
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