Conclave to elect the pope will begin on 7 May, says Vatican

Catholic cardinals from all over the world will converge under Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel on 7 May to begin a conclave, the private election process to choose the next pope.

- Angela Giuffrida

The date was confirmed by the Vatican yesterday after cardinals gathered for the first pre-conclave meeting since the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday. The 16th-century Sistine Chapel has been closed to tourists to allow preparations for the election process to begin.

The 134 cardinals eligible to vote will be sequestered between the chapel and their lodgings at Casa Santa Marta, the guesthouse where Pope Francis lived during his 12-year papacy, for however long it takes to select a new pontiff.

The German cardinal Reinhard Marx told reporters on Saturday that he expected the conclave would last "just a few days". But Anders Arborelius, a Swedish cardinal in the running for pope, told reporters before the meeting that voting could take longer "because we don't know each other".