Our guest blogger is Jack Jenkins, Writer and Researcher for the Center for American Progress Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative.

Since Pope Benedict XVI announced he will resign from the Pontificate at the end of February, speculation has already begun as to who his replacement will be.

The process of electing a new Pope, however, is somewhat complicated – both politically and theologically. Technically speaking, for example, political positioning and specific personal attributes don’t make someone more or less “qualified” to be the Pope – according to Catholic tradition, the Pope is selected through the will of God, not because of any particular trait.

Still, recent Papal elections have exhibited some noticeable trends about who ends up in the Vatican’s Big Chair – attributes that aren’t necessarily required, but that show up more often than not among Popes. Here are a few:

1. The Pope can be almost any Catholic male, but is usually a cardinal. While the Pope does seem to have to be male, Canon law isn’t all that specific about other qualifications. The Pope can actually be a cardinal, a bishop, priest, or even a layman, although any non-cardinal would have to immediately receive an “episcopal consecration” from the Dean of the College of Cardinals before becoming Pope. There is certainly some precedent for non-cardinal Popes (see Pope Urban VI), and there is even speculation that a non-Catholic could hypothetically be elected Pope – provided he converts to Catholicism upon assuming the pontificate, of course. Most of the time, however, Popes are former cardinals – probably because cardinals are the ones who actually get to vote on the new Pope in the first place.

2. Popes are often old, but they’re not that old. The papacy isn’t known for attracting especially youthful individuals, but the system does have a cap: Only cardinals under the age of 80 can vote on the next Pope, and – since most Popes come from this group – it’s unlikely that anyone over 80 will ascend to the Papacy.

3. Popes tend to share many of the same views as their predecessor. Cardinals select the new Pope based on their faith and their personal conscience, but who does the voting matters: Pope Benedict, for instance, has appointed 67 of the 181 Cardinals that will be electing the new Pope. This is a common practice among Popes (John Paul II has appointed two-thirds of the electing Cardinals by the time he passed away), and significantly increases the chances that a new Pope will share many of his predecessor’s views.

4. The Pope is usually fluent in several languages. Catholicism boasts 1.3 billion adherents spread across every country in the world. This means communication (read: translation) is a big challenge for Catholicism, and a big part of Church governance. Not surprisingly, many former Popes were known to be linguistic savants; Pope John Paul II, for instance, was fluent in at least 8 languages, and conversant in several more. By contrast, Cardinal Timothy Dolan – the so-called “American Pope” – appears to only be fluent in English and Italian, although he also claims to be conversational in Spanish.

5. The Pope is typically knowledgeable about – or influential within – places where the Catholic Church is growing. Although the Catholic Church isn’t exactly a model for rapid change, the tradition isn’t oblivious to shifting times: Pope John Paul the II, for instance, was the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years, and came to represent the global broadening of the Catholic tradition. The election of Pope Benedict XVI continued the new trend of non-Italian Popes (he’s German), and it stands to reason that – since the Catholic church is continuing to grow in Latin America and Africa – a new Pope could easily be pulled from one of those areas.

Pope Benedict XVI, who took office in 2005, announced on Monday that he will resign on Feb. 28, the first pope to leave the papacy since Pope Gregory XII in 1415. The 85-year-old pontiff is in poor health and has been advised by doctors “not to take any more transatlantic trips.” Reports indicate that “he has considered stepping down for months.”

“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” he said in a statement issued by the Vatican.

Pope Benedict is regarded as a conservative theologian who has asserted that Catholicism is the “true” religion that is in competition with Islam, has repeatedly spoken out against same-sex relationships, and “restated the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on women priests.” During his annual Christmas speech to the Vatican, the pontiff called same-sex marriage a “manipulation of nature” to be deplored and an attack on the “essence of the human creature.” He claimed that attempts to pass marriage equality “harm and help to destabilize marriage” and present “serious harm to justice and peace.”

Still, at times, the pontiff has relied on Catholic teaching to advance progressive causes:

– Addressing climate change. Benedict was dubbed the “Green Pope” for his commitment to environmental concerns. He boosted “efforts to make Vatican City more environmentally efficient,” used “Roman Catholic doctrine to emphasize humanity’s responsibility to care for the planet,” and called on world leaders to “agree on a responsible, credible and supportive response to this worrisome and complex phenomenon, keeping in mind the needs of the poorest populations and of future generations.”

– A fair and equitable economy. “[T]he economy cannot be measured only by maximization of profit but rather according to the common good,” he said in 2011 during a visit to Spain. In a 2009 treatise, the pontiff called for protections for “labour unions — which have always been encouraged and supported by the Church,” the elimination of world hunger through “wealth redistribution,” the protection of the “natural environment” — “God’s gift to everyone” — from unchecked economic expansion, and a strengthened “family of nations,” like the U.N. with “real teeth.”

– Universal health care. At an international papal conference on health care in November of 2010, at the Vatican, Pope Benedict and other Catholic church leaders said it is the “moral responsibility of nations to guarantee access to health care for all of their citizens, regardless of social and economic status or their ability to pay.” Saying access to adequate medical care is one of the “inalienable rights” of man, the pope said, “Justice in health care should be a priority of governments and international institutions.” Catholic bishops, however, led the charge against Obamacare’s contraception requirements and have rejected the Obama administration’s latest compromise.

– Immigration reform. Pope Benedict had been a supporter of U.S. immigrants, regardless of their legal status, urging the Bush administration to treat immigrants with human dignity. The United States must do “everything possible to fight…all forms of violence so that immigrants may lead dignified lives,” the pope said when asked if he would address the issue of Latin American immigrants with Bush in 2008.

In 2010, as the Catholic Church sought to deal with widespread allegations of child abuse, Pope Benedict found himself in the “center of a mounting scandal.” After reports surfaced that he may have avoided disciplining guilty priests as a Cardinal, some critics called for his resignation.