So, that’s that for tonight. At almost 8pm on the nose clouds of black smoke appeared over the Vatican.
That, of course, meant that the first ballot in the conclave to elect a new pope has finished without any one of the 133 potential candidates reaching a two-thirds majority.
There is no real surprise in that. A pope has not been elected on the first ballot in centuries.
The process took just over three hours and 15 minutes and while we can’t read too much into that, it was a fair bit longer than had been anticipated. That might have more to do with the fact that there were more cardinals voting than ever before than any kind of exciting cardinal drama in the chapel.
But who can say for sure.
The second day starts early tomorrow but based on today’s timings we are unlikely to have a result one way or another until after 11am. We’ll be here to keep you posted but for now, from this Pope, it’s a big auld ciao bella!
Black smoke has just started billowing out of the chimney in the roof of the Sistine Chapel meaning there will be no new pope tonight.
Am starting to wonder if someone needs to go in there and check the stoves are working! The cardinal-electors must be absolutely ravenous by now.
Just in case you think we have abandoned you, we haven’t... We’re just waiting like the rest of the world for news from the Vatican. It’s been three hours now so we can’t believe it will be much longer.
There are around 30,000 people in St Peter’s Square and we are more than an hour behind schedule.
There must be hundreds of television cameras from news broadcasters all over the world trained on that little chimney right now with every angle covered. The seagulls that live on the roof clearly have no notion they are the most watched birds in the world right now.
The cardinal-electors have now been locked in the Sistine Chapel for around 90 minutes and all the speculation in the run-up to the first vote suggested that if one of the 133 cardinals had received the required two thirds support, we would have white smoke within that time frame. That suggests that - as has been widely predicted - there will be no new pope tonight and we will begin again in the morning. But that could all change on a smoke’s wisp.
The sun is setting over Rome now and it has been around two hours since the conclave started but still no sign of smoke.
There are actually two stoves in the Sistine Chapel. One is used to burn the ballots - there’s no chance of a recount in Vatican circles so there isn’t - while a second stove is used to burn the chemical mix that makes the smoke either black or white. If no chemicals were added, the smoke would probably come out grey which would of use to absolutely no one.
Still no sign of any smoke coming out of that chimney. There are, however, wisps of cloud that pass the flue every now and then that do look a little like white smoke which only serves to add to the drama of the evening.
TikTok is all over the conclave anyways.
Short update from Patsy McGarry who is waiting in St Peter’s Square. “As cardinals announced themselves it was possible here on the Square to identify certain ‘sides’ among the crowds. Leaning on a fence beside me were a German group who got excited when the very traditional Cardinal Burke of the US introduced himself.”
Anyone got a pack of cards?
So what might happen next?
If a new pope is elected tonight - and we can’t stress enough how unlikely that is - he will be fitted with his new papal vestments. The pope’s tailors keep large, medium and small sizes ready - and then he sits on a throne in the Sistine Chapel to receive the other cardinals who file up to pay homage and swear obedience.
The senior cardinal deacon then steps out on to the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica overlooking the square and announces in Latin: “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum. Habemus Papam” (I announce to you a great joy. We have a pope) and reveals the cardinal’s name and the name he has chosen.
The new pope then appears on the balcony to deliver his first public pontifical greeting and bless the crowds in St Peter’s Square.
Even the seagulls are watching the most famous chimney in the world right now.
And with the heaviest of thuds the doors to the Sistine Chapel have been closed and the first ballot is under way.
The swearing of the oaths is now complete and everyone bar the voting cardinals have been ordered out of the Sistine Chapel.
Just by way of an update on the timings as things are running a bit behind what we anticipated earlier in the day. The swearing of the oaths is still ongoing which means the voting won’t begin for 30 minutes or so. That means that is we have a pope - to use the phrase that will be used - we should see white smoke shortly after 6pm Irish time. If no one cardinal has a two thirds majority, it will be closer to 7pm before we see the black smoke.
The Catholic Church’s most senior leaders meet today to elect a successor to Pope Francis.
The vote takes place in secret inside the famous 15th century chapel with only the colour of the smoke revealing whether the new pontiff has been elected.
The ballots of the 133 voting cardinals are burned after each vote.
If the smoke from the chimney is black, it is a signal that no pope has been elected. If it’s white, then it’s Habemus Papam – a pope has been elected.
The conclave to elect the church’s 267th pope gets under way this afternoon when the cardinal electors, all aged under 80, will gather. There will be just the one ballot today.
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Here on the Square thousands of people are watching proceedings from the Sistine Chapel on large screens with glorious choral music played over its powerful PA system, writes Patsy McGarry.
“Clouds have gathered over St Peter’s and the Sistine Chapel...a portent of things to come? Still the sun keeps breaking through. and the crowds come and go in and out of St Peter’s...’dreaming’ of Michaelangelo? As the public are denied access to the Sistine Chapel for the foreseeable future..
“The bells of St Peter’s clang 4 times as the sun takes a break while inside the Sistine Chapel the cardinal electors identity themselves and take the oath.
All the cardinal-electors are now at their assigned seats in the Sistine Chapel and it must be said the props department working on the film Conclave absolutely nailed their brief. This could just as easily be a still from the movie.
The procession of the cardinal-electors is nearly complete with the first ballot set to take place in a matter of minutes.
Extra Omnes is the shout that will ring out in the Sistine Chapel shortly and - as you will no doubt recall from your Latin studies - that means ‘Everyone out" and once that is said the cardinal-electors will be left to their own devices and we will be left staring at a chimney waiting for the smoke.
The procession into the Sistine Chapel is about to get underway and you can watch it here.
There are 252 cardinals but only 133 cardinal electors - they qualify as they are under the age of 80. Of those there are 52 from Europe; 23 from Asia; 20 from North America; 17 from Africa; 17 from South America; and four from Oceania. As has been the way for centuries Italy has the most cardinals who can vote, with 17, while the US has 10 and Brazil has seven. The UK has three. Ireland has just the one - Sean Brady - although he is too old to vote. We have two if you count Drimnagh born and reared Kevin Farrell who has been running the whole show in recent weeks and is a 12-1 outsider to be the next pope. He is considered a US cardinal as that is where he spent much of his life as a priest.
The very first time the Sistine Chapel was used as the venue for a conclave the cardinals of the day were so inspired by the heavenly art above them that they managed to elect a pope who had fathered several children from several women.
After the conclave in 1492. The cardinals, in their wisdom, elected Rodrigo Borgia who became Pope Alexander VI. Yes, he was one of those Borgias. He was an enormously wealth pope and had something of a chequered time at the head of the church with a standout moment coming when he appointed his 17-year-old son the Archbishop of Valencia.
It was a different time.
While the still dramatic choice of pope is now the persevere of 133 cardinals, there was a time when the people in the neighbourhood had more of a say.
In 1378, not long after the seat of the church had been restored in Rome - after a long spell exiled in France - there were fears among the Romans that a Frenchman would be elected to the papal throne and bring the church HQ home with him.
So they took matters into their own hand and demanded a local pope using not entirely Christian language it has to be said.
Cardinals were told that if an Italian was not made pope and sharpish then “we will kill you all”
Bartolomeo Prignano from Naples was quickly elected and took the name Urban VI. He wasn’t the best pope to be honest and months later his election was declared invalid.
That led to a schism in the church and the election of a rival pope, Clement VII, who took the papacy back to Avignon.
The French popes then spent decades excommunicating the Italian popes and vice versa.
It was all very heated.
No long to go now until the 133 cardinal-electors head into the Sistine Chapel ahead of the very first vote of the conclave. If there is to be a new pope today, the white smoke will most likely be seen floating across the Eternal City’s blue skies by 5pm Irish times. If the smoke is black, the fire probably wont be lit until closer to 6;30pm. You can say what you will about the institutions of the Catholic Church but they certainly manage this piece of drama very well indeed.
While the level of interest in who becomes the next pope extends far beyond the 1.4 billion Roman Catholics all over the world, it is - obviously - a moment of great importance for the faithful. Ella Sloane finds out how some of those who belong to the Church feel on the eve of a new era.
The longest conclave dragged on for two years and nine months from 1268 to 1271 with three of the cardinal electors dying before a Pope was named. It took place in Viterbo and as time passed the townsfolk grew frustrated by the delay so did what any reasonable folk would do and locked the cardinals in the Palazzo dei Papi, and fed them only bread and water before eventually taking the roof off their palace Finally Tebaldo Visconti was chosen. He chose the name Gregory X and he created the conclave as we know it today with daily voting, to ensure a more expeditious process. For that we are eternally grateful.
Inside Politics is looking at the papacy today. Voting is not the conclave’s only similarity to secular politics. The prospects of victory for frontrunners Antonio Tagle from the Philippines and current Vatican secretary of state Pietro Parolin have declined in recent days, thanks to the emergence of negative stories about the two cardinals.
But how do the 133 cardinals, many of whom do not know each other, align behind a particular candidate?
Venezuelan journalist Edgar Beltrán is Rome Correspondent for The Pillar, a US-based Catholic news organisation. He joins Hugh Linehan to explain the behind-the-scenes politics, friendships and rivalries that play a big role in the selection of the next pope, why it is possible this conclave of cardinals may struggle to reach a conclusion and what happens if the votes remain tied.
While much attention is on the conclave today and seeing as how you asked, the word has its roots in the Latin phrase for ”with key” because the cardinals were locked in a room with- wait for it - a key. It wasn’t always this way.
For the first 1,000 years or so, the pope was often chosen by acclamation - effectively the wild cheering and broad support among the general populace was enough to see a man over the finishing line. There was no hard and fast rules about who the pope could be (other than the fact that they couldn’t be a woman) and it was not confined to the cardinals of the world.
For our money, the best pre-conclave election was the one that took place in 236. That was they year a dove landed on the head of a priest called Fabian. The cardinals of the day decided the dove was the holy spirit and made Fabian the pope, much to his surprise, we suspect.
He served as the leader of the Catholic Church for 14 years. It wasn’t an easy time to be a Christian and being pope was even harder still. Fabian was martyred in 250 after refusing to pay homage to the Roman Emperor Decius and the Roman gods. He later became a saint.
More from Patsy McGarry: “You forget how old, ‘old’ is until you see over 250 elderly men process into St Peter‘s. These are members of the College of Cardinals, almost half of whom are over 80 and so have a vote in the conclave which begins this afternoon, 3.30pm Irish time. This ‘old’ comment is not ageist. They are chosen for their experience, and some in particular are very ‘experienced’.
For instance the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who celebrated this morning’s Mass, is 91. In his homily he emphasised unity in diversity - an appeal for a centrist pope.
All cardinals took part in the 12 meetings they have had since Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, so those elderly cardinals will have had a profound influence on the younger, newer ones - not least the 21 created last December, who hardly know anyone.
There are 133 cardinal electors - under 80 - and 89 of those must agree on a candidate before we have a pope.”
Some clips from the last Mass before the conclave have landed.
Our man in the Vatican, Patsy McGarry, has sent in his first dispatch. And it is about the weather. It is, he tells us “a beautiful day here at Vatican City” although just before the pre-conclave Mass in St Peter‘s Basilica - it rained. “I think we west of Ireland people attract rain wherever we go. But, it was warm rain!”
You don’t often get warm rain in Roscommon so you don’t.
There is nothing to see right now but at some point today the eyes of much of world will be on this little chimney.
It is the job I was born to do.
Everyone - even those tangentially involved in the conclave including cooks, drivers, doctors and low ranking clerics - have sworn an oath of secrecy. Anyone found to have broken the oath faces automatic ex-communication. The Sistine Chapel has been swept for electronic bugs and from today jamming devices are being deployed across Vatican City to stop mobile signals while special coatings have been placed on all the windows of the Sistine Chapel to stop laser scanners picking up any audio.
Cardinals charged with picking a new pope to lead the Catholic Church have been told they are making a “choice of exceptional importance”.
Addressing cardinals at a Mass in advance of the start of the conclave Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said: “We are here to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit, to implore his light and strength so that the pope elected may be he whom the church and humanity need at this difficult and complex turning point in history.
“To pray, by invoking the Holy Spirit, is the only right and proper attitude to take as the cardinal electors prepare to undertake an act of the highest human and ecclesial responsibility and to make a choice of exceptional importance.
“This is a human act for which every personal consideration must be set aside, keeping in mind and heart only the God of Jesus Christ and the good of the church and of humanity.”
Cardinal Battista Re said a new pope must foster a sense of communion – “communion of all Christians with Christ; communion of the bishops with the pope; communion of the bishops among themselves”.
He added: “This is not a self-referential communion, but one that is entirely directed towards communion among persons, peoples and cultures, with a concern that the church should always be a ‘home and school of communion’.”
He said there is a “strong call to maintain the unity of the church” although this is “a unity that does not mean uniformity, but a firm and profound communion in diversity, provided that full fidelity to the gospel is maintained”.
And speaking of bookies, an update has just landed from Boyle Sports with an Irish man among the front runners.
- 5/2 Pietro Parolin
- 3/1 Luis Antonio Tagle
- 6/1 Peter Turkson
- 6/1 Pierrebattista Pizzaballa
- 7/1 Matteo Zuppi
- 10/1 Mario Grech
- 12/1 Peter Erdo
- 12/1 Kevin Farrell
- 20/1 Jean Marc Aveline
- 20/1 Mykolo Bychok
- 22/1 Robert Sarah
- 25/1 Jose Tolentino
- 33/1 Angelo Bagnasco
- 33/1 Fridolin Ambongo Besungu
- 40/1 Raymond Leo Burke
- 40/1 Charles Maung Bo
- 40/1 Cristobal Lopez Romero
- 40/1 Mauri Gambetti
- 50/1 Wilton Daniel Gregory
- 50/1 Anders Arborelius
- 66/1 bar
They are also offering odds on how many ballots will be need.
- 11/8 5-6
- 2/1 7-8
- 11/4 3-4
- 11/2 9-10
- 10/1 11 or more
- 1-2 25/1
Who will the new pope be?
Lord only knows..... but the bookies have some thoughts. While betting on a pontiff is not smiled upon by the church, it happens and Paddy Power has installed Cardinal Pietro Parolin, an Italian, as their favourite at 5-2, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines is 3-1, and Cardinal Matteo Zuppi - the aforementioned Mo Salah of Fantasy Papa - is at 9-2. The bookies are also offering odds of 11-10 on `Habemus Papam’ by Thursday, and 7-4 by Friday.
Just in case you think it will be done and dusted today, it might be worth pointing out that no pope has been elected on the first day of a conclave for centuries.
It took five ballots over two days to elect Francis in 2013. Pope Benedict XVI was elected in 2005 following four ballots. Back in 1978, it took eight ballots to elect John Paul II while his predecessor Pope John Paul I was elected after four ballots weeks earlier. There were -fittingly - six ballots for Pope Paul VI while 11 ballots over four days were required before John XXIII became pope in 1958.
Our man in Rome, Patsy McGarry, says he expects a new pope to be in place before the weekend.
The Mass in advance of the beginning of the conclave is well under way and can be viewed here.
What there won’t be - sadly - is a game of Fantasy Papa.
The game which has piggybacked on the popularity of fantasy football has attracted well over 60,000 players in Italy over the last week.
And how does it work?
Well, you pick your top 11 cardinals - the ones you think are in the running to be the next pope. Each time one is mentioned in the Italian press in connection with the papacy you get points with a whole slew of bonus points awarded if one of your 11 gets elected. There are also bonus points on offer for those who guess the chosen name of the new pope.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi might be considered the Mo Salah of the game in that everyone in Italy seems to have him on their team. He is the archbishop of Bologna and the head of the Italian bishops’ conference and certainly among the favourites to be the next pope.
So what can you expect from this papal election live story? It is a fair question. Well, we can’t lie, it is not going to be updated 10 or 12 times an hour like a story about a general election of big storm might be for the easy to understand reason that there will be spells when not a whole lot is happening.
Or at least what is happening will be happening behind locked doors with absolutely everyone involved sworn to secrecy.
To steal from the first World War cliche, there may be “long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror” although instead of boredom we will go for quiet reflection and a slew of semi-interesting factoids about conclaves past and present. And instead of terror there may be some high drama the like of which you might only experience four or five times in a lifetime.
When are we likely to see the first wisps of smoke over St Peter‘s Square?
Well at 2.45pm, (Irish time) the cardinals will be transported from their temporary home of CASA Santa Marta to the Apostolic Palace in choir dress for the entrance into the conclave.
There will be one ballot this evening.
If a new pope is successfully elected, the white smoke should appear at around 5pm and if there is to be black smoke it is likely to start billowing over the Vatican around 90 minutes after that.
Presuming there is no pope at the close of business today, there will be an early start tomorrow with the cardinals departing from Santa Marta to the Apostolic Palace 6.45am Irish time in advance of a mass 30 minutes later. At 8.15am Irish time there will be midmorning prayer in the Sistine Chapel and they will begin voting.
According to the Vatican white smoke could appear shortly after 9.30am (Irish time) or black smoke after 11am if there is no pope.
At that point the cardinals will break for lunch in Santa Marta returning to the Sistine Chapel shortly before 3pm where another ballot will be expected by 3.30pm.
The Vatican is suggesting that white smoke might appear at around 4.30pm with black smoke likely at around 6pm.
At that point, the voting for the day is over, there will l be Vespers in the Sistine Chapel, and at 6.30pm, they will return to Santa Marta.
Today is the first day of the conclave to elect a new Pope and while it is impossible to say who that will be or exactly when an announcement will be made, we do have a fairly clear timeline of how the first day will unfold.
First up the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church will gather for mass in St Peter’s Basilica. It will be an occasion filled with the pomp and ceremony you might expect with the mass celebrated by the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Battista Re (91). He, you no doubt will recall, led the funeral mass of Pope Francis just over a week ago.
After the mass the 133 cardinal-electors will go to the Sistine Chapel.
The doors will be locked at exactly 4.30pm (Rome time) which is 3:30pm Irish time and the election of the 267th Pope will begin in earnest.
There will be just the one ballot today and if no one gets a two thirds majority, the ballot papers will be burned and – following the addition of chemicals – black smoke will billow from a special chimney that has been installed in the Sistine Chapel for the occasion.
The cardinals will then retire for the day.
They will return to the Sistine Chapel on Thursday morning ahead of two more ballots in the morning, a break for lunch and then two more ballots in the afternoon.
It will be a case of rinse and repeat on Friday – assuming there has not been white smoke before then.
If there is no pope elected by Friday evening, there will be a day off for reflection – or lobbying – after which a further seven ballots will take place.
If there’s still no white smoke there will be another 24 hour pause before there’s a further seven ballots.
If after four such pauses there is still no pope, the cardinals will vote for one of the two remaining most popular candidates and once one of them has a two-thirds majority we will have a pope.
