For anyone used to glad-handing politicians and long, boisterous campaigns, the conclave to choose the next pope will be an election like no other. This race will be as secretive as the Kremlin’s once where, if not more so.

Just think of this: Beginning in a couple weeks, 117 cardinals will select the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church, far and away the world’s biggest Christian denomination. But if they obeyed the rules, none of the church leaders with this momentous duty ever discussed a successor to John Paul II while he was alive. (The restriction once was aimed at keeping a pope from naming his own replacement).

Even with the lid off the topic now, overt campaigning for the job remains unacceptable and would kill a man’s chances. The church tries to play down the political aspects that are inevitably involved in selecting any leader.

The race is further complicated by the fact that the College of Cardinals has its largest crop of voters in history, and the most varied, hailing from 52 nations.

Clues to emerging front-runners will be hard to come by, though modern technology may offer a little bit of help.

The 2005 election will draw the most massive media corps ever for a conclave, creating enormous pressure on the cardinals to grant interviews &045; once a rarity.

That could, in turn, influence the outcome. Cardinals will mostly limit their comments to generalizations, but colleagues may sift each others’ remarks for programmatic hints or potential alliances: Indiscreet statements will say more about who won’t be elected than who will.

And there’s another source of information that wasn’t around in 1978 &045; the Internet. A cardinal’s every utterance is now stored there, if his fellow churchmen are curious. That could also make or break some of the &uot;papabile,&uot; as potential candidates are known in Italian.

For the insiders, important campaigning will occur in private &045; over meals and one-on-one or small group chats as cardinals assess candidates and take the measure of each other.

Many already know each over through world travels.

Those living outside Italy come to the Vatican for sessions of the international Synod of Bishops or other gatherings more frequently than before. As a Polish cardinal, John Paul made his mark at synods and was elected to their between-sessions governing body, extending his renown beyond Poland.