Cardinal Francis Arinze

Cardinal Francis Arinze Prefect of the Congregation of divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has been in the World press a lot recently following the death of Pope John Paul II who died on the eve of April 2nd earlier this year. The Cardinal was born on 1 November 1932 in Onitsha, Nigeria and is today based in the Vatican. He became a Christian from the early age of 9, entered in to the Seminary at the age of 13, became a priest in 1958 and a bishop in 1965. He was proclaimed Cardinal by the late John Paul II in May 1985. He is reported to share some of the late Pope's conservative views on contraception and family issues and many believe that he has an international sense of the opening of the Catholic Church whilst still being faithful to its great traditions. Cardinal Arinze is currently the head of the Vatican office of Inter-religious Affairs which has reportedly earned him the nickname of “Mr Interfaith.”

On 18th April 2005 78 year old Joseph Ratzinger took the name of Benedict XVI as he became the first German Pontiff since the 11 th Century. He is the 265th Pope chosen to lead the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics.