Black smoke has risen from the Sistine Chapel, meaning the 133 cardinals locked inside have failed to elect a new pope after three ballots. Voting will continue this afternoon. Watch and follow live below.
Thursday 8 May 2025 14:02, UK
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While the cardinals break for lunch, the rest of those amassed in the Vatican and Rome are left waiting.
This afternoon’s voting session may well bring about the next pope.
But until then, here are the latest pictures of the crowds waiting for the next vote:
After a third failed ballot this morning, the cardinals remain divided on the question of the next pope.
Here are 11 cardinals who could be considered contenders in a wide open papal race:
Our Europe correspondent Siobhan Robbins has explained all the secrecy measures the conclave deploys to keep voting under wraps.
Watch the video below:
Pedro Deget is travelling in Italy with his family.
The 22-year-old is Argentinian, like Pope Francis, and hopes to see his successor elected while he is in the country.
“We are hoping for the white smoke tonight,” he says.
Deget and his family were hoping for a pope in Francis’s image.
“Francis did well in opening the church to the outside world, but on other fronts, maybe he didn’t do enough,” he says.
From the piazza, he adds: “We’ll see if the next one will be able to do more.”
Some of the experts and guests we’ve had on Sky News have used the phrase “moving day”.
It touches on the intricate dynamics of the secretive voting process and how it unfolds in real time, with frontrunners rising and falling.
In short, “moving day” refers to how the cardinals’ votes move from one candidate to another as the successive ballots show where support is coalescing and where it is thinner.
Here Sky News commentator Alastair Bruce and Father Stephen Wang, rector of the Venerable English College in Rome, explain this key part of the voting process.
Momentum reaching critical mass?
Bruce says: “There are people who are heavily promoted at the beginning and do well, and yet they don’t quite have the impetus to get to the top.
“What can happen is a lesser-known name can do increasingly well and votes spill off the ones who were doing well at the beginning and suddenly the lesser-known cardinal gets momentum.
“What tends to happen is about now we tend to see who is getting momentum.
“This afternoon should solve that. The momentum may reach a result, it may not.
“If it doesn’t by tonight, I expect by tomorrow morning… after a good breakfast, we might see a result.”
‘Very important shifts behind the scenes’
Father Wang adds to this, saying: “It’s a very interesting time in the process for the cardinals, after the third ballot.
“Let’s just say, for example, I had someone I was convinced of, and I may have voted for him three times now, and I’m seeing he’s getting four or five votes, but it’s not going up.
“It’s not realistic he’s going to have enough consensus around him from other cardinals, this is just the moment I might be thinking I need to let go of my first choice and look at the others who have a bit more momentum and support them.
“There will be some very important shifts going on behind the scenes now.”
As the black smoke went up at around 10.50am, out came the phones.
Many of the 15,000 people in St Peter’s Square waiting for this moment moved to capture it…
A close friend of Pope Francis and survivor of Catholic clerical abuse has warned that any future pope still has much to do to tackle sexual abuse in the church.
Juan Carlos Cruz told Sky News’ Mark Austin: “Absolutely, the historic cases are there. We know about them.
“We are very aware of these cases and of countries who barely report these things.
“Some bishops around the world, you ask them what are they doing about the sexual abuse crisis, and they tell you still: ‘Uh well, this is not a problem in this diocese’ and you’ve personally spoken to victims in that diocese.
“There’s still much to do.”
He said tackling the issue would be added to a long list for any future pontiff.
This included issues such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, attitudes around immigration, women in the church and Donald Trump.
The afternoon’s voting session will run from approximately 3.30pm to 6pm and will include two rounds of voting.
If the first round is successful, we’ll see white smoke above the Sistine Chapel.
This could be as soon as 4.30pm.
If it is unsuccessful, the 133 cardinals will move immediately to the second round of voting.
Only if that is also unsuccessful will black smoke be seen again.
If that happens, we’ll have had five unsuccessful voting rounds.
By Siobhan Robbins, Europe correspondent in St Peter’s Square
After three votes the smoke streaming from the chimney of the Sistine chapel is still black.
I was interviewing George and Marina from Columbia in St Peter’s Square when someone in the crowd shouted “smoke.”
We whipped around to see the inky plume.
“It means they can’t agree yet,” Marina said, while George looked crestfallen.
This was his last chance to see the smoke in person before a flight home this afternoon.
Also among the 15,000 people in the square was Father Christopher Warren.
He works in Rome but said as the hours ticked by, he was drawn to the square in the hope of seeing the moment the new pope was announced.
Sadly, this time the smoke was black.
“There’s a sense of disappointment but there’s also expectation – a building up of excitement. We’re going to have a new pope very soon and that’s great!” he said.
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