Who will be the next pope? Bookies have got their odds ready

The bookies have got their odds out already on news that Pope Benedict will be resigning, after the 85-year-old pontiff made the announcement in Latin during the consistory for the canonization of the martyrs of Otranto.

Paddy Power's top three are led by Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet with odds of 5/2 to be elected as the next Pope. He is Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops which is seen as a powerful position within the Vatican, it seems. At 68, he might be the right age for a 'young' Cardinal to take over the papacy.

The Quebec native is an intellectual disciple of Benedict XVI, respected for his brains, his integrity and his spiritual depth. Supporters say he would make a humble pontiff and defender of Catholic identity, but critics believe he is too much like Benedict - in the words of seasoned Vatican report John L. Allen, "cerebral, retiring, uncomfortable in the spotlight and more passionate about the life of the mind than realpolitik."

Paddy Power then gets in two African frontrunners. Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, 64, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. At odds of 7/2, the Ghanian's election would mean that the Cardinals electing him recognise that the future is not Benedict's Europe, but the Catholic Church's growing importance in the 'global south'.

He is seen as a great communicator but in Africa, the Catholic Church is more concerned about exorcism, animism and the growth of Islam than the problems of AIDS, sexual politics and theological disputes.

The other frontrunner - mistakenly - is Cardinal Francis Arinze, 80, of Nigeria at odds of 7/2. But Arinze retired a few years ago, hardly demonstrating an appetite for the far-greater demands of the papacy. So if a younger pope is called for there is another African option in the form of Turkson.

There are hints that Arinze was Benedict's favourite candidate: not so long ago the pope said that having an African pontiff (for the first time in 1,500 years) would "send a splendid signal to the world" about the universality of the church.

Even William Hill gives Arinze odds of 3/1, with Turkson in at 7/2 and then Marc Ouellet at 7/2, but also 7/1 to Angelo Scola and Gianfranco Ravasi, and then 101 to Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga and 12/1 to Angelo Bagnasco.