Conclave Set to Begin as Cardinals Gather to Choose New Pope
- AP News
The conclave begins voting
"There's only one round that first evening, and then you will see black smoke or white smoke," says Kurt Martens, ordinary professor of canon law at the School of Canon Law at the Catholic University of America.
Typically, he says, the first round is merely an indication of the cardinals' priorities. On the following day, the conclave starts holding two rounds of voting each morning and another two in the afternoon.
After each vote, a needle is pushed through the ballots, binding them together. If no winner emerges with a two-thirds majority, the two packages are "put together in that stove that is in the corner of the Sistine Chapel, to burn them and produce whatever smoke needs to be produced — white or black," Martens says.
The church once used wet straw or dry straw to produce the right color, but to avoid confusion, the process now relies on chemicals.
The cardinals will continue to pray and contemplate — and vote — until a new pope is elected.
How long do conclaves last?
"All of the conclaves from the 1900s onwards have been under four days," says Bry Jensen, host of Pontifacts.
After a successful vote, the winning candidate is asked two questions. The first is whether he accepts his election as pope.
"And then the second question is going to be, 'What name do you choose?' And then the name is chosen," Martens says.
Before Pope Francis was elected, many of the faithful in Buenos Aires, Argentina, knew their archbishop as simply Father Jorge, as NPR reported in 2013.
Official documents are filled out, and the new pope is taken into a sacristy, to be fitted with papal attire.
"There are typically three sets of vestments ready," in sizes roughly equal to small, medium and large, Martens says.
