Cardinals' First Day of Voting Ends without a Pope

Black smoke rises from the chimney

By Paul Ohia, with agency reports

The black smoke that billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel Tuesday signalled that no Pope was elected after a historic conclave to elect a new leader of the Catholic Church was kicked off in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

The famous smoke would have turned white if a new Pope had been elected by 115 scarlet-robed cardinals who are participating in the process.

The smoke from a chimney to indicate whether cardinals locked away in the Sistine Chapel have elected a pope is not created just by burning used ballots, the Vatican said Tuesday.

“We use smoke flares,” Paolo Sagretti, who was in charge of setting up the chapel for the election conclave, told AFP.
The ancient signalling system — still the only way the public learns whether a pope has been elected — used to involve mixing wet straw with the ballots to produce white smoke, and pitch to create black smoke.

Before they prepared to start the conclave, the “Princes of the Church” took on twitter to say goodbyes, which could be the final farewell, as a cardinal, for the particular person who would be chosen as the head of the church.

Benedict XVII resigned last month creating a vacuum in the church that has not seen such abdication of the papal throne in the last 600 years.

By Canon law, all the cardinals are qualified to be elected, but bookmakers said Tuesday three favourite candidates had emerged, namely, Italy’s Angelo Scola, Brazil’s Odilo Scherer and Canada’s Marc Ouellet.

Apart from the three candidates regarded as front runners, there are more names in the rumour mill which include cardinals from Austria, Hungary, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Ghana and the United States.

Before entering into the seclusion of the Sistine Chapel, they held a grandiose mass in St Peter’s Basilica where they prayed for unity in the Church.

During the homily, they burst into thunderous applause when the dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano, publicly thanked the “beloved and venerable” Benedict in his homily.

Outside the St. Peter’s square where pilgrims watched the proceedings on four giant screens, rainstorms drenched thousands of visitors.

The cardinals entered the Sistine Chapel in a procession chanting to invoke divine guidance.

The cardinals were later cut off from the outside world and would remain inside the Vatican walls until they have made their choice in a centuries-old ritual, much of it carried out in Latin.