Conclave live: White smoke pours from Sistine Chapel, signalling new pope chosen

Hamilton Spectator

08-05-2025

Catholic cardinals from around the world have sequestered themselves within the Sistine Chapel to elect
Pope Francis's
successor.
Follow the Star's live coverage on the second day of the papal conclave.
Watch live as cardinals choose the new pope. Candidates need a two-thirds majority, or 89 votes.
Cardinale Giovanni Battista Re leads a mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff, prior to the start of the conclave, at St Peter's Basilica in The Vatican, on May 7, 2025.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, says he hopes that a new pope would be elected by this evening.
'I hope that when I return to Rome this evening, I'll find the white smoke already rising,' Re said in the city of Pompei, according to Italian newspapers.
Re is 91 years old, which makes him too old to participate in the conclave of 133 cardinals who are electing the next pope and who all have to be younger than 80.
Black smoke billows from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel during the conclave to elect a successor of late Pope Francis, at the Vatican, Thursday, May 8, 2025.
Black smoke is again pouring out of the Sistine Chapel chimney, indicating no pope was elected on second or third ballots of the conclave.
The smoke appeared just before noon after morning voting sessions to elect a successor to Pope Francis.
The cardinals will now return to the Vatican residences where they are being sequestered for lunch. After that, they will go back to the Sistine Chapel for the afternoon voting session.
Two more votes are possible today.
Seagulls stand near the chimney of the Sistine chapel on the second day of the conclave, in The Vatican, on May 8, 2025.
It's a question that many people (including us) are asking.
The Vatican press office has shared a couple time windows for when smoke could rise from the chimney:
That said, smoke did not rise from the chimney yesterday until hours after the expected time, so it's possible the votes could take longer than expected.
People wait on St Peter's Square on the second day of the conclave, in the Vatican on May 8, 2025.
Casting and counting ballots for a new pope may have taken so long yesterday because of the large number of cardinals voting – 133 – and their linguistic diversity.
They hail from 70 countries, and not all speak or understand Italian fluently, which could have slowed down the proceedings if help with translation was needed.
While in the past Latin was the universal language of the church, nowadays not all cardinals understand Latin or even Italian, which is the lingua franca of the Vatican.
The Vatican television cameras have resumed their fixed shot on the Sistine Chapel chimney, in case smoke comes out after the second ballot of the conclave today.
Seagulls perched on the roof nearby as the crowds in the piazza below waited in suspense.
Entire school groups joined the mix, blending in with people participating in preplanned Holy Year pilgrimages.
Crowds in St. Peter's Square witnessed black smoke pouring out of the Sistine Chapel chimney on Wednesday night, signaling that the cardinals at the conclave had not been able to elect a new pope.
We have no way of knowing how long it took Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa to deliver the traditional meditation after the Sistine Chapel doors closed and the voting began.
Cantalamessa is the retired preacher of the papal household.
Also, the vote might have had to be done twice, if for some reason the first ballot had to be invalidated.
That happened in 2013, when during one voting round, an extra empty ballot appeared.
People wait in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican to catch a glimpse of the smoke billowing from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel where 133 cardinals are gathering on the first day of the conclave that will elect the successor of late Pope Francis, Wednesday, May 7, 2025.
The smoke billowed out at 9 p.m. Wednesday, some four hours after 133 cardinals solemnly entered the Sistine Chapel, took their oaths of secrecy and formally opened the centuries-old ritual to elect a successor to Pope Francis to lead the 1.4 billion-member church.
With no one securing the necessary two-thirds majority, or 89 votes, the cardinals will retire for the night to the Vatican residences where they are being sequestered.
Catch up on the first day of the papal conclave here
Black smoke wafted from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel
Wednesday afternoon, signalling that the cardinals sequestered within have not yet chosen
Pope Francis's successor
.
Thus concludes the first day of the conclave, a secretive, centuries-old selection process that can take years to resolve — although modern conclaves have taken no more than a week to elect the next pontiff.
Here's everything you need to know about the ceremony, as well as what you can expect going forward.
Read more from the Star's Kevin Jiang.
Journalists and residents of Schiavon, northern Italy, hometown of Cardinal Pietro Parolin, gather at the Caffe' Centrale, Wednesday, May 7, 2025, to watch a live TV broadcast from the Vatican, where Cardinal Parolin is presiding over the conclave where the successor of Pope Francis will be elected.
Caffè Centrale, on the main drag of the Veneto hometown of Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a papal favorite, filled up with locals and journalists awaiting the first sign of smoke on Wednesday.
A large TV screen displayed images from St. Peter's Square and the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel, where 133 cardinals were casting the first votes for pope, as locals in the Veneto town of Schiavon, near Vicenza, quaffed glasses of wine.
'We're waiting, and we're rooting for him,'' said Giacomo Bonora, raising a glass of the local favorite, a red wine spritz, and using the local nickname for Parolin, 'Don Piero.'
Bonora said that when Parolin returns to the town of 2,600, he asks to be called 'Don Piero,' the way a parish priest would be addressed rather than 'eminence,' a cardinal's honorific. Piero is the Veneto dialect for Pietro.
Read the full story from The Associated Press.
As the Sistine Chapel's doors slammed shut to seal the cardinals off from the outside world, leadership of the proceedings was assumed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the 70-year-old secretary of state under Francis and a leading contender to succeed him as pope.
Parolin is the most senior cardinal under age 80 eligible to participate, and seemed to have received blessings from none other than Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the 91-year-old dean of the College of Cardinals, who was caught on a hot mic during Wednesday's pre-conclave Mass telling Parolin 'Auguri doppio' or 'double best wishes.'
Italians are debating whether this was a customary gesture, an informal endorsement or even a premature congratulations.
Pedro Deget, 22, a finance student from Argentina, is hoping for a new pope in Francis' image. 'Francis did well in opening the church to the outside world, but on other fronts maybe he didn't do enough. We'll see if the next one will be able to do more.'
The Rev. Jan Dominik Bogataj, a Slovene Franciscan friar, was more critical of Francis. He said if he were in the Sistine Chapel, he'd be voting for Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem who is on many papal contender lists.
'He has clear ideas, not much ideology. He's a direct, intelligent, and respectful man,' Bogataj said from the square. 'Most of all, he's agile.'
Francis had many traditionalist critics who made clear they believed themselves to be more Catholic than the pope.
Francis sought to neutralize the conservative opposition through key appointments and targeted removals, and he also oversaw a crackdown on the old Latin Mass. When he approved blessings for same-sex couples, African bishops united in disapproval. And when he allowed divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion, some accused him of heresy.
White smoke is pouring out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel.
At one point there was applause from the crowd as thousands train their eyes on the chimney above the Sistine Chapel, but it was a false alarm.
'We want a Pope close to the people and close to us, to the youth, who represent the future of the Church, said Kacper Michalak, 20, a seminarian from Poland who came for the 2025 Jubilee.
The holy year is an ancient church tradition
encouraging spiritual renewal which encourages pilgrimages to Rome.
VATICAN CITY—How long does it take to choose a pope?
It's hard to say precisely, since the Vatican doesn't publish official data on the number of votes or tallies in past conclaves, and sources compiling their own data are not in complete agreement.
But historical figures provide a few clues.
The longest conclave since the 20th century began took 14 rounds of balloting across five days, ending with the election of Pius XI in 1922. The shortest was the conclave that elected Pius XII in 1939, which took three ballots in two days.
Cardinals must reach a two-thirds majority to elect a pope. That was somewhat easier in conclaves past: In 1922 there were just 53 voting cardinals, and until 1978 there were fewer than 100 each time. This year there are 133, so 89 votes are needed.
Here's a look at the duration of conclaves in recent history, according to multiple sources including Catholic and other Italian publications:
There are cell phones galore in a packed St. Peter's Square, recording the historic moment as it unfolds.
This, of course, is a relatively new addition to the conclave proceedings, which were first held at the Sistine Chapel in 1492 — a mere half-century after Gutenberg invented the printing press.
In 2013, it took 66 minutes from seeing smoke to Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran announcing Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio — now, of course known as Pope Francis — would be the next leader of the Catholic church. It took another 10 minutes before the red curtains on the balcony were pulled aside and Francis walked through.
Minutes before the white smoke started billowing out, a family of seagulls — including a baby seagull — landed on the roof of the Sistine Chapel. When the smoke appeared, they moved away but remained on the roof, seemingly unbothered by the momentous decision taking place directly under their feet.