Nearing 80 years old, Italian Cardinal Mario Zenari has spent the past 16 years in the wartorn nation of Syria as papal nuncio.

While much of the world’s attention is on what will happen in the Sistine Chapel and the men who will choose the church’s next leader starting May 7, the enduring legacy of Pope Francis is seen in the women whose voices helped shape — and carry forward — his vision.

True discipleship is not measured by the creeds Christians recite or the theology they know, but by how deeply they love, a cardinal said at a memorial Mass for Pope Francis.

One by one, placing a right hand on the Book of Gospels, staff driving, cooking, cleaning and caring for the cardinals who will elect a new pope will swear an oath of perpetual secrecy about the election of the 266th successor of St. Peter.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who lost the rights associated with being a cardinal after Pope Francis asked him to resign in 2020, said he would obey the late pope’s wishes and not seek to enter the conclave May 7.

When the conclave begins May 7, there will be 117 cardinals who will not be allowed into the Sistine Chapel to take part in the voting process that chooses the next pope.

The Catholic Church and all of humanity want guidance and support in a world filled with toil, doubts and contradictions, said Cardinal Baldassare Reina, papal vicar of Rome.

The world’s cardinals under the age of 80 will gather to elect the successor of Pope Francis, who died April 21 from a stroke and heart failure. The conclave is scheduled to begin May 7.

Ambrogio Piazzoni, then-vice prefect of the Vatican Library and author of a book on the history of papal elections, distributed a sheet of “some curiosities” about the elections to reporters in 2013, after Pope Benedict announced his resignation and before Pope Francis was elected.

The cardinals who enter the Sistine Chapel May 7 to elect a new pope use smoke signals to communicate with the outside world.