Roman Catholic cardinals started to move into sequestered lodgings yesterday ahead of a momentous conclave to elect the successor to Pope John Paul II. The 115 eligible cardinals will enter the secretive conclave in the Sistine Chapel today with no clear favourite to take over the reins of the 1.1 billion-member Church.

Some of the red-hatted ?princes of the church? held public Masses around a rainswept Rome on saturday, refusing to speculate on the vote and underlining 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,? said Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras.

In the run-up to the historic 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.

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.

That could leave the field open to a less divisive candidate who could bridge the numerous factions that have risen up within the largest religious organisation in the world.

The cardinals will hold up to four ballots a day until they reach the necessary majority.

<B>Forced to live in cramped cells</B>

Of the eight 20th century conclaves, none took longer than five days, and two of them were completed on the second day. It took just eight ballots over three days to choose the relatively unknown Karol Wojtyla of Poland as Pope John Paul in 1978.

Whereas in past conclaves, the elderly cardinals were forced to live in cramped cells inside a sealed-off Sistine Chapel, this time around they will sleep in the plush Santa Marta residence, built within the Vatican?s manicured gardens.

The cardinals dined together in the Santa Marta yesterday night and hold a public Mass today morning in St. Peter?s Basillica. At 4. 30 p.m. (1430 GMT), they will file into the Sistine Chapel to start their deliberations.

In the build-up to the vote, some 15 cardinals have been promoted in the press as potential popes, including Italian cardinals Dionigi Tettamanzi and Angelo Scola, Brazil?s Claudio Hummes, Nigeria?s Francis Arinze and the Honduran Maradiaga.

Among the major issues facing the Church are the growing spiritual poverty of Europe, the material poverty of the third world and the centralised workings of the Vatican bureaucracy.

The cardinals themselves have taken an unusual vow of media silence ahead of the conclave, adding to a sense of uncertainty and intrigue within the male-dominated Church hierarchy.

The conclave will be like no other election in the world. There will be no press briefings after the ballots, no spin doctors promoting their candidates, just a simple puff of smoke from the Sistine chimney ? black smoke for an inconclusive vote and white smoke when a new pope is chosen.

In preparation for an eventual decision, Vatican workers have put up red curtains on the balcony of St Peter?s where the new pope will make his first appearance to the world.

In the hours leading to today?s lock-up, leading Catholics made final public appeals to the cardinals about the sort of pope they wanted to see step onto the balcony.

<B>Crispian BALMER</B>