The Conclave call has already gone out to all 252 Roman Catholic cardinals worldwide and they are trickling into Vatican City. Of that number, only 135 of the churchmen entitled to wear red zucchettos will actually cast votes for a new pope because they are younger than age 80, which is the cutoff for voting.

Church protocol allows for at least 16 days of grieving before a conclave can start, so May 6 is considered the earliest possible date.

Officially, Roman Catholic cardinals arriving in Rome are mourning their late leader.

But because Pope Francis elevated many of the men to the College of Cardinals -- and they have never met as a body -- they are expected to use this time around the funeral to unofficially see where they stand on church issues, and a new pope.

"I don't doubt that there will be a little bit of politicking going on," said Sister Barbara Reid, long-time president of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, a world-renowned graduate school of theology and ministry.

Reid said she prays that the late pope's humanistic approach will be carried over to the selection of his successor.

"I think all of us are praying that that openness to the spirit and that kind of deep listening that Pope Francis so stressed in teaching us how to be a synodal church,” she told NBC Chicago. "Hopefully the cardinal electors will be as committed to that way of being as Pope Francis has been trying to shape us all to listen very deeply to what the other is saying, in order to learn from one another and in order to hear how the spirit is speaking in each person's heart, and to genuinely listen and discern together."

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The current hit movie called "Conclave" has sparked an interest in the secret meetings that will take place in the famous Sistine Chapel, where doors will be locked, cardinals maintain a vow of secrecy and progress is marked by the burning of ballots each day: black smoke for no cardinal obtaining a required two-thirds vote and white smoke when a new pope has been elected.

"It's not a predestination kind of thing, and just you have to figure out what God's will is," said Sister Reid. "I think God's will and the work of the spirit works through very human processes and very human persons, trying to discern where the needs are, and how do we best address those needs. Who's the best person?"

The Conclave will take less than one week, if recent history holds.

In 1922 when Pius XI was elected, it took five days and 14 ballots. But since then, popes in the past century have been elected in just a few days. Popes Francis and Benedict, the two most recent, only took two days before the white smoke trailed skyward.

There are no Roman Catholic rules about how long the seclusion and selection should take. And centuries ago, it took much longer: months in some cases and nearly three years for the election of Pope Gregory X in the 13th century.

As the 2025 conclave call continues in Rome, the Holy Spirit is likely to work much faster.