Cardinals arriving for the first day of informal meetings after Pope Francis’ funeral were swarmed at the city-state’s gates by journalists eager for hints of whether any consensus was building around the election of a successor.

Becciu who once a leading papal conteder is the first cardinal in modern history to be tried and convicted by the Vatican's criminal court.

Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the most senior Catholic Church official to have been convicted, announced on Tuesday that he would not participate in the secret conclave to elect the next pope. Read