The head of the Vatican Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, Cardinal Arinze is the strongest African candidate and would be the first black pope in 1,500 years.

A convert from animism, Arinze has worked in the Vatican for 20 years, many of them as the Pope's point man for relations with Islam.

Only seven years after he was ordained as a priest, Arinze became a bishop at 32. By 52, he was a cardinal, becoming one of the Church's highest-ranking Africans.

Personable and theologically conservative, Arinze has shown great loyalty to Pope John Paul II. But many say he is too close to the Vatican bureaucracy.

Others are skeptical of a pontiff from Africa, where Catholicism has relatively shallow roots.