New Coptic pope to be picked on Sunday

A council of Coptic Christians in Egypt has named three candidates to succeed Pope Shenouda III, who died in March. On November 4 a blindfolded child aged 5-8, chosen from 12 peers, will be asked to draw one of the names from a transparent urn placed on the altar of St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo. He will become the 118th head of the region's largest Christian minority and the new patriarch of Alexandria, to be enthroned in a ceremony on November 18. This will bring to an end a long and complex procedure, involving 1,000 council members, who chose two bishops and a monk from a short-list of five. Of these, the most voted was Bishop Raphael, 54, who leads the churches in Cairo's center. A doctor by training, he is known for his activism in demanding more rights for his brethren, who make up 10% of the country's population and are widely discriminated against. Also in the transparent urn will be the names of Bishop Tawadros, 60, who believes the church should stay out of politics, and a monk from Alexandria, Father Raphael Ava Mina, 70, who was very close to the late pope.