It's a papal version of Succession: at Benedict XVI’s funeral, the plotting will begin | Catherine Pepinster

Cardinals are already thinking about a successor to Pope Francis – and the conservative faction may aspire to someone more traditional

Airlines usually upgrade cardinals to first class and offer them champagne. But when the leaders of the Roman Catholic church fly into Rome’s Fiumicino airport this week for the funeral of the former pope Benedict XVI, they may well forgo the fizz as a sign of their mourning. It’s hard to imagine, though, that they will refrain from engaging in the whispers and the politicking that is so typical of a gathering of top Catholic prelates. The funeral will be a time to remember and mourn Benedict XVI – but the plotting that will take place may resemble an episode of Succession.

Benedict XVI was a renowned theologian and an enforcer of Catholic doctrine who earned the nickname “God’s rottweiler” for his pursuit of those he thought errant. He was a hero to conservative Catholics, but he will be most remembered for his dramatic resignation in 2013 – the first pope in 600 years to quit rather than die in office. He pleaded physical frailty. “Having before God examined my conscience over and over, I have come to the certain knowledge that my strength, due to the burdens of age, is no longer suitable for properly administering the Petrine office,” he wrote, but he lasted almost another 10 years before dying at the age of 95 on New Year’s Eve.

Catherine Pepinster is a former editor of the Tablet and the author of The Keys and the Kingdom: The British and the Papacy