Benedict's successor: Bookmakers offer odds on who will be next pope

Pope John Paul II (L) gives Mons. Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson of Ghana his cardinal ring inside St Peter Basilica 22 October 2003 at the Vatican. / ARTURO MARI/AFP/Getty Images

LONDON Bookmakers have been quick to offer odds on candidates to replace Pope Benedict XVI, with cardinals from Ghana, Nigeria and Canada among the early favorites.

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Pope Benedict XVI

Ghana's Cardinal Peter Turkson, Canada's Cardinal Marc Ouellet and Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria lead in betting with Britain's major bookmakers.

William Hill made Turkson - one of the highest-ranking African cardinals at the Vatican - its 3/1 favorite Monday, followed by Ouellet at 7/2 and Arinze at 4/1.

Ladbrokes also had Turkson as favorite, followed by Arinze and Ouellet.

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Ireland's Paddy Power also offered short odds on the three, as well as long odds on unlikely candidates - including U2 singer Bono at 1,000/1. It also offered 1,000/1 odds on Father Dougal Maguire, the simpleminded fictional priest from 1990s U.K. sitcom "Father Ted."

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Professor Chester Gillis, a theology professor at Georgetown University and the dean of Georgetown College, told "CBS This Morning," that the church may choose a cardinal of a less "advanced age" and that while the possibility is "remote," Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, could be a candidate.

The timing of Pope Benedict's surprise announcement, coming days before the beginning of Lent - the 40 day period before Easter, the most important feast in the Catholic Church - presents a challenge to church officials who would like a new pope in place by March 24, the beginning of Holy Week.

[me_nz]

Whoever they choose they will be male, old, unmarried and rooted to an out of touch an increasingly irrelevant dogma therefore completely out of touch with current outlook of modern society and the needs and aspirations of those they claim to lead. The church in the west will continue the slide into irrelevant oblivion with falling attendances fewer and fewer priests and churches open. While in the developing world it will continue to blight the lives of those over which it holds sway by denying education about contraception to limit family sizes so that every child is a wanted child and so that AIDS need not be endemic. Let's hope they are deft at coming up with fresh excuses for the Churches abominable abuses like the Report in the Magdalene Laundry's in Ireland released last week. N.B. Before any of you fellow Catholics get on your high horses to go rushing to the churches defence. I have seen the impact of these abuses for myself in a church run orphanage in Guatemala and how the perpetrators who got away almost scot free. I have no time for more sanctimonious pretence it is time for some truth and for the people running my church to stand up as decent human beings be honest and accountable and more than anything to be true to the teachings of the bible! Its time for some love and joy in our religion I am sick of the guilt and the fear and the hypocracy.