Roman Catholic cardinals started to move into sequestered lodgings today ahead of a conclave to elect a new pontiff, with no clear favourite in sight to succeed Pope John Paul II.
The 115 cardinals eligible to vote will all stay in a specially-built residence within the Vatican, dining together tonight before entering their momentous, secretive conclave in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow afternoon.
Before being shut off from the outside world, some of the red-hatted "princes of the church" held public Masses around a rainswept Rome today in which they emphasised the spiritual nature of their quest.
"People think that we are going to vote like in an election. But this is something completely different. We are going to listen to the Lord and listen to the Holy Spirit," Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras said in a homily.
None of the cardinals wanted to talk about who might take over the reins of the 1.1 billion-member Church.
"We don't know (who will be pope). Nobody can tell at the moment," said Mexican cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera. "I believe the Holy Spirit already knows, but he hasn't told us yet."
In the run-up to the vote, much media speculation has centred on John Paul's closest aide and arch-ideologue Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, suggesting that the German prelate might head initial balloting. Ratzinger also tops betting Web sites.
But many Vatican watchers doubt whether such a figure, whose conservative dogma has polarised the Roman Catholic world, would be able to gain the two-thirds majority needed to become the 264th successor to the first pope, St. Peter.