Cardinals attend the Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice Mass at St Peter's Basilica, before they enter the conclave to decide who the next pope will be. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images) Source: Getty Images
BLACK smoke has billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, meaning Roman Catholic cardinals have not elected a pope in their second or third rounds of balloting.
Cardinals voted twice on Wednesday morning (Vatican time) in Michelangelo's famed frescoed chapel, but no candidate received the necessary 77 votes.
The 115 cardinals held a first inconclusive vote in the Sistine Chapel in Rome earlier as they began the process of finding a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, 85, who made history last month by becoming the first pope in 600 years to step down.
The black smoke, created from the burning of the ballots in a stove in the chapel and aided by some added chemicals including potassium and sulphur billowed above the Vatican, indicating that no-one had gained the two-thirds majority needed to become the 266th Roman pope.
"I'm not happy to see black smoke. We all want white," said the Reverend ThankGod Okoroafor, a Nigerian priest studying theology at Holy Cross University in Rome. "But maybe it means that the cardinals need to take time, not to make a mistake in the choice."
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White smoke, produced by mixing the smoke from burning ballots with special flares, would indicate that a new head of the Roman Catholic Church has been chosen.
As they awaited the outcome of the first vote, suspense mixed with hopes among the tens of thousands of pilgrims in St Peter's Square - and in the Catholic Church worldwide, which is struggling in many parts with scandals, indifference and conflict.
Thousands gather on St Peter's square waiting for the smoke announcing the result of the first vote of the conclave at the Vatican. AFP PHOTO / JOHANNES EISELE
The Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi insisted that the continued balloting was part of the natural course of the election and didn't signal divisions among cardinals. He noted that only once in the past century had a pope been elected on the third ballot: Pope Pius XII, elected on the eve of World War II.
"This is very normal," he said. "It's not a sign of particular divisions within the college, but rather of a normal process of discernment."
Among the cardinals Italy's Angelo Scola, Brazil's Odilo Scherer and Canada's Marc Ouellet - all conservatives like Benedict - are the three favourites but there is no clear frontrunner and conclaves are notoriously difficult to predict.
Cardinal Peter Erdo of Hungary has the backing of European cardinals who have twice elected him as head of the European bishops' conference.
On the more pastoral side is Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, the favourite of the Italian press, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the back-slapping, outgoing archbishop of New York who has admitted himself that his Italian is pretty bad - a drawback for a job that is conducted almost exclusively in the language.
The American candidates, however, did get a boost of sorts on Wednesday: President Barack Obama, who has clashed with American bishops over his health care mandate, indicated the Catholic Church could certainly tolerate a superpower pope since Catholic bishops in the US "don't seem to be taking orders from me."
In an interview with ABC News, he said an American pope would preside just as effectively as a leader of the Catholic church from any other country.
Some analysts suggest that Benedict's dramatic act - the first papal resignation in over 700 years - could push the cardinals to take an equally unusual decision and that an outsider could emerge as a compromise candidate.
Cardinals have held an inconclusive vote in the Sistine Chapel as they begin the process of electing a pope.
Hopes are high in the Philippines for the popular Archbishop of Manila, Luis Antonio Tagle, and on the African continent for South Africa's Wilfrid Napier, the archbishop of Durban, but in practice their chances are very slim.
Two-thirds of the cardinals are from Europe and North America and the view among many experts is that only someone with experience of its inner workings can reform the scandal-tainted Vatican bureaucracy, the Roman Curia.
The drama is playing out against the backdrop of the church's need both for a manager who can clean up an ungovernable Vatican bureaucracy and a pastor who can revive Catholicism in a time of growing secularism.
The difficulty in finding both attributes in one man, some analysts say, means that the world should brace for a long conclave - or at least one longer than the four ballots it took to elect Benedict in 2005.
"We have not had a conclave over five days since 1831," noted the Rev. Thomas Reese, author of Inside the Vatican, a bible of sorts for understanding the Vatican bureaucracy. "So if they are in there over five days, we know they are in trouble; they are having a hard time forming consensus around a particular person."
Breakfast was served for the cardinals in Domus S. Marthae at 6:30am (4:30pm AEDT). They will be transferred to the Sistine Chapel at 7:45am (5:45pm AEDT).
Today's timetable for the cardinals is:
08:15 (6:15pm AEDT) – Mass
Morning vote(s) (scrutiny(ies) taken
12:30pm (10:30pm AEDT): Cardinals return to Domus Sanctae Marthae
1pm (11pm AEDT) – Lunch
4pm (2am Thursday AEDT) - Cardinals return to Sistine Chapel
4:50pm (2.50am AEDT) – Scrutinies taken
7:15pm (5.15am AEDT) – Vespers
7:30pm (5.30am) – Cardinals return to Domus Sanctae Marthae
