Empty churches in Europe. The spread of Islam in Africa. Poverty in Latin America. A scarcity of priests in North America.
Cardinals who gathered for the pope's 25th anniversary have outlined some of the major challenges facing the Roman Catholic Church in the 21st century — and offered hints about who among them might be the best to confront them as a successor to Pope John Paul II.
Adhering to tradition, none of the cardinals questioned this week would divulge their papal picks, and all said they hoped John Paul would continue his papacy for several more years. But with the 83-year-old pontiff ailing, the question of the future of the church is being openly discussed.
For Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, himself considered a papal contender, a major challenge ahead in Latin America is poverty and the effects on the poor of the globalized economy.
"We cannot accept this as Christians, so the church must have a strong presence in the globalized world, in this economic and political world, so that we can reintegrate all these people who have been excluded economically, socially and politically," Hummes said in an interview.
Such concerns have fueled speculation that when the time comes, the College of Cardinals might elect its first Third World pope — to offer hope to the most disenfranchised in the same way that the Polish-born John Paul became a revolutionizing figure for people oppressed by communism in eastern Europe.
The church is growing fastest in Latin America, Africa and Asia — but those are also areas where it is facing competition from other religions: Islam in Africa and evangelical Protestantism in Latin America. A pope from one of those areas could give Catholicism a strong foothold in the competition for souls.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the influential dean of the College of Cardinals, has indicated it could well be time for a black pope.
Hummes, however, said the next pope's race or nationality wasn't as important as his ideology.
"Obviously, there are interesting points, but I think the important thing in this moment is to ask oneself who could best help the church and the world now and in the future," he said.
Chicago Cardinal Francis George noted that the pope is also the bishop of Rome "and so the obvious thing, it seems to me ... is to first of all see if a Roman or an Italian is a candidate."
Beyond that, the field was open, he said, although he pretty much ruled out an American pope.
"An office like the papacy needs to be free. And to some extent, even the appearance of being in some sense captured by, as we say now, the world's only superpower, would not be helpful to the mission of the church," he told reporters.
George listed two top threats to the church that the next pope will have to confront: increasing secularization and "resurgent Islam," which he said was growing quickly along with Catholicism in the developing world.
"So an understanding of those two phenomena, preferably from within, would be helpful I think," he said.
Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna, considered another papal contender, also cited inter-religious tensions as a major challenge ahead, although he said the "global competition" for souls didn't just involve Islam but also Hindu fundamentalism.
"Dialogue among religions is the only way in a globalized world," he said.
Schoenborn also cited poverty, particularly in Africa, and what he called "the crisis of global capitalism" in today's world.
"It was significant that the pope's first trip after communism fell was to Africa," he said at a news conference.
Tanzanian Cardinal Polycarp Pengo concurred.
"He has given great hope to us at the time when we had so many problems for which we would have lost hope," Pengo said in an interview. "So I hope that God gives him even more life so that he can continue to lead us, despite his weak situation."
The big concerns for Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles have to do with numbers: Except for his enormous new cathedral, the churches in his region are too small for their flocks. In other states, there aren't enough priests to go around — part of the ongoing problem of a dwindling number of vocations in the United States and elsewhere.
Yet churches in many parts of Europe stand virtually empty — a phenomenon that Mahony attributed in part to a failure of European parishes to incorporate lay people into the work of the church in the way that parishes have in the United States.
"Is that the reason why the churches are empty in France and Italy?" he said. "I don't know. But I've been to some countries in Europe, and from what I've experienced, theirs are not dynamic, alive inviting communities."
"This unevenness, in church growth and diminishment, this has got to be approached," he said.