The next Pope of the Roman Catholic Church could well come from Asia or Latin America or Africa, a top Indian cardinal has said.

"The world is looking forward to an Asian or African or Latin American Pope," Cardinal Telesphore Placidus Toppo told IANS in an interview.

The first tribal Asian prelate who will be part of the College of Cardinals authorised to elect a Pope said just as the present Pope John Paul II was a "surprise choice" from Poland 26 years ago, the new Pope would most certainly be a non-European.

Toppo, 65, the Archbishop of Ranchi, who is also an eligible candidate for the papacy, did not specify if an Asian cardinal could make it to the top to head the spiritual leadership of over a billion Catholics worldwide.

"There is no canvassing or building pressure from any quarters to elect the Catholic pope. The papal election is always a spiritual experience, guided by the Holy Spirit and communicating the will of God," said Toppo, also president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI), the apex governing body of the Catholic Church in India that comprises 161 cardinals, archbishops and bishops.

"But the way the Church in Asia is growing in every respect, the mind and heart of the Roman Catholic Church should be in Asia as the Church in Asia is one the most vibrant in the whole world," he said, noting that this millennium is the millennium of Asia in many respects.

The College of Cardinals, which elects the Pope, includes representatives from five continents -- namely Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America-North America, and Oceania -- and 67 countries, 55 of which have cardinal electors.

Of the total of 190 cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church today, only 124 are eligible to vote and to be voted for the papacy while 66 retired cardinals who are 80 years and above do not form part of the electorate.

Currently Italy, which dominated the list of elected Popes in the past, leads with 21 cardinal electors, USA 11, Brazil, Germany and Spain have six each, France five, Poland and Mexico four each, and India, Columbia and Canada have three each. The rest of the countries have single digit cardinals.

The three Indian cardinals, including Toppo, are Cardinal Ivan Dias of Bombay Archdiocese and Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil of Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese in Kerala.

The continent-wise break-up of eligible cardinals reflects an interesting division of numbers: Europe 61, Latin America 24, North America 14, Africa 12, Asia 11 and Oceania 2.

To elect a new Pope, all eligible cardinals are invited to the Vatican City for a weeklong or longer conclave during which they remain closeted in meditation and prayer to elect the Pope.

The candidate must obtain two-third majority votes and give his consent before his name is announced to the world as the new Pope.

When a cardinal does not secure a two-third-majority vote, the voting papers are burnt in a stove and black smoke is emitted to indicate to the people waiting outside St Peter's Square in Vatican City that the Pope has not yet been elected.

It is only when a cardinal obtains a two-third majority vote that the voting slips are burnt in a stove with some mixture to emit white smoke, indicating that the Pope has successfully been elected.

The European cardinals, especially Italians, have traditionally been elected Popes in the Catholic Church for quite a few centuries.

An exception was made 26 years ago when Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the Archbishop of Krakow of then communist Poland, was elected Pope John Paul II.

The most widely travelled Polish Pope, in keeping with the rapid growth of the Catholic Church in non-European countries, increased the number of cardinals to the present level of 190.

--Indo-Asian News Service