THE conclave has a deliberately archaic way of going about its business, which may serve to distract observers from the importance of its one task: to find a credible successor to Benedict XVI.

The use of burned ballot papers to signal that a new pope has been elected, the white smoke, the black smoke, the Latin voting cards, the waiting crowds in St Peter's Square - all of these are icing on the cake. What really matters is that the man who steps out on to the balcony is someone who can unite the Roman Catholic Church by serving as a focus of unity, and can present a coherent narrative to the world outside the Church. This now means a man with the sort of story that the media can pick up and run with.

John Paul II had a powerful story: from a Communist country, he had been a factory worker, a poet, and (some would say, crucially) an actor. But he was not just a performer: he had a powerful message in his own person about the durability of Christian values in the catastrophic 20th century. Benedict XVI's story, in contrast, was never so clear: there is so much less that the TV and internet age can do with a cat-loving academic with a penchant for Mozart and Hildegard of Bingen.

The cardinals know this, of course, and Benedict XVI was chosen precisely because he was not John Paul II, in the hope that he would steer the papacy away from media stardom. He did, but the experiment was not an unqualified success.

While Benedict was loved to distraction by those inside the Church (something that outsiders still find hard to understand), from the point of view of the world, it was one gaffe after another - even if this is a crude perception of, for example, the Regensburg speech in 2006. His words then may yet prove to be a historical turning-point, bringing new clarity and truthfulness in Christian-Muslim relations.

Yet now the search must surely be on for someone who can handle the world with confidence; someone who will put in place structures in the ramshackle Vatican which can make a better fist of expressing church teaching than has been the case. So, the "look" of the new pope will count for a great deal.

THE 115 cardinal electors may not all know each other well, but one thing is for sure: those who do know each other dislike each other heartily. There have been, for the first time in modern history, open tensions between various princes of the Church.

Cardinal Bertone, Benedict's personal choice as Secretary of State, has been much resented: he heads the papal diplomatic service, but came to the job with no diplomatic experience. Factionalism among the clergy may not be news, but open warfare is: in 2010, Pope Benedict had to rebuke Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna for criticising Cardinal Sodano, the Dean of the Sacred College, over remarks that the latter had made about the child-abuse scandals.

The cardinals themselves know that this is a suicidal way of acting: as a body, they are meant to be men of exemplary loyalty - to the pope and to each other. For this reason, we can expect the conclave itself, and the new pope, too, to seek unity at almost any cost. This will mean personal sacrifices. Cardinals Sodano and Bertone will soon be heard of much less, as they head for long-overdue obscurity and retirement.

This also means that the conclave, whose deliberations are protected by the most solemn oaths, is not a political cockpit. The new pope will not be the pope of the victorious party, but someone who appeals to all groupings in the conclave: a monarch, not a politician.

Politicians may have voted for him, but they will not have been looking for one of their own kind. Everyone is now aware that the Church, by descending into squabbles, is ceasing to be the Church, and that it needs a way out of this impasse. The Church is, after all, supposed to be one, holy, and Catholic, as the creed states.

The new pope will be hailed as a man of holiness and prayer, and this will not be mere talk. In the intense atmosphere of the conclave, such a man is likely to stand out. This must have been the case with John Paul I and John Paul II.

The man elected will have to be beyond reproach in one crucial regard: he will have to be untouched by the child-abuse scandals that have been so damaging to the reputation of the Church. He will be charged with the task of restoring that reputation.

THE Roman Catholic Church thinks in centuries, but you do not need a long memory to remember the way in which the election of a pope has signalled a complete change of atmosphere. When Albino Luciani was elected in 1978, the excitement was palpable. The same was true of Karol Wojtyla, less than two months later. There was in both cases the sense of the inauguration of a new era.

But the moment when this happened in recent times with the greatest effect was with the election of Angelo Roncalli in 1958. John XXIII was not an obviously revolutionary candidate - he was 77 years old, enormously fat, Italian, and had limited pastoral experience, having spent most of his life as a papal diplomat.

Yet John XXIII proved to be, in the five years of his reign, an epoch-changing pope. This is what the Roman Catholic Church needs now: another John XXIII, another surprise, another man with the common touch, a communicator of the love of God.

Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith is a moral theologian and a priest of the Roman Catholic diocese of Arundel & Brighton.