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With second round of voting this morning now complete, the cardinals will soon break for lunch, leaving the Sistine Chapel to return to their lodgings at Casa Santa Marta.
Then they will return to the chapel for another two rounds of voting later this afternoon, scheduled to begin around 4 p.m. local time (10 a.m. ET).
Reporting from Vatican City
For a few seconds it wasn’t entirely clear what color the smoke was. When it billowed into the blue cloud-dappled sky, it certainly looked a little gray.
“For a moment, I thought — it’s white, it’s white!” said Miguel Alfonso, 35, a priest from Honduras.
Before long the result was unequivocal, however.
“Ah, negra!” his friend, David Barrios, 41, a priest from Valencia, Spain, shouted.
Shortly before that, confusion and excitement abounded as the smoke turned white for just a second before it went out. It’s safe to assume this was just the chemical element of the stove being turned off.
Plumes of black smoke were seen billowing from the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling that the 133 cardinal-electors have not yet reached a decision to elect a new pope.
The cardinals must come to a two-thirds majority to reach a decision. It’s the second black smoke signal of the conclave after three rounds of voting.
The average age of cardinal voters are years and three months. But the conclave’s youngest member is only 45.
Born in Ukraine in 1980, Mykola Bychok is a Melbourne-based bishop. Bychok became the most senior Catholic official in Australia when he as “elevated to the dignity of Cardinal” last year by late Pope Francis.
He is the first Australia-based cardinal since George Pell, who died in 2023. Bychok spent most of his priesthood in Ukraine and served as a vicar in New Jersey from 2015 to 2020.
Bychok has been based in Melbourne since January 2020 and will be eligible to apply for Australian citizenship this year, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He was enthroned in 2021 as the third bishop of the Melbourne Eparchy.
There has so far been no smoke from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney, which means that the cardinal-electors have not yet reached a conclusion on who should be the next pope.
It could also mean that the first morning vote has gone over time. If we don’t see smoke soon, we may next expect it at around noon local time (6:00 a.m. ET). As a reminder: there are four chances for white smoke on a regular conclave day — after each of the four votes — but only two chances for black smoke after each pair of votes.
Last night, crowds waited much longer than expected for a smoke after after Wednesday’s first ballot.
There was speculation around why it took so long: it could be that the meditation ahead of the vote ran much longer than anticipated, or that the voting was delayed because of a procedural mistake. It may also have something to do with the fact that there are more cardinals than ever before, most of whom are new to conclaves, and therefore took more time than estimated to vote.
Reporting from Vatican City
In the throng outside the Apostolic Palace you will find conversations about religion, politics, local gastronomy — and soccer.
The Borggiano family are from Buenos Aires, near the neighborhood where the late Pope Francis grew up. They flew here to see the conclave — but right now they are debating which Argentinian legend is better: Lionel Messi or Maradona.
“You’re British?” Ricardo Borggiano, 62, correctly says of this NBC News reporter. “What do you think about Maradona?” he asks cheekily, gesturing with his outstretched arm in a reference to the “hand of god” goal that saw Argentina eliminate England from the 1986 World Cup.
After NBC News attempted to get the conversation back to the matter in hand, his son, Frederico, 33, who now lives in Madrid and met the rest of the family here, said, “We’ve just had an Argentinian pope, so I don’t think we’ll get another one. I just hope we see white smoke today.”
All eyes are on the Sistine Chapel chimney to see if the cardinals have elected a new pope, signified by whether it will billow a white smoke and the church bells ring.
With two morning votes and two afternoon votes on each full day of the conclave, the temporary chimney installed last week by the Vatican’s fire department will emit black smoke if the vote is inconclusive.
It may seem as old as the papacy itself, but the frescoed chapel’s cast-iron stove was first used in 1939 to burn ballots and personal notes. Since 2005, the use of that stove triggers an electronic, smoke-producing device outfitted on a second, more modern one. Both stoves are about 3.2 feet high and have two openings — one for lighting them and one for ballots.
According to the Vatican press office, the black smoke is made by a cartridge holding a mixture of potassium perchlorate, anthracene and sulphur. The white smoke is created by a mixture of potassium chlorate, lactose and a pine resin also known as Greek pitch. The smoke travels up almost 100 feet of steel and copper tubes to the chimney and the world beyond.
Reporting from Vatican City
For the avid smokewatcher, preparation is key.
In this sense, it’s clearly not Joaquin Lopez’s first rodeo. The Spanish telecoms engineer is used to lengthy religious gatherings, having waited for six hours at Semana Santa — Spain’s Holy Week — last month.
Down at the very front of St. Peter’s Square, he proudly shows off his top conclave hack: a folding, telescopic stool. These are common in his native Spain because of municipal laws banning portable backed chairs at such events.
“We knew we would have to wait a long time and so this is perfect,” said Lopez, 55, from Andalusia, proudly shrinking down his seat to little larger than a dinner plate. “We were here for five hours yesterday but it was fine because we were able to sit down, eat some paninis and drink water. We had some beers but we weren’t allowed to bring them in, so we had to drink them at the security scanners outside.”
Reporting from Vatican City
There are already thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square eagerly awaiting the results from the second round of voting. If the cardinals have elected a new pope, white smoke should soon appear from the Sistine Chapel chimney around 10:30 a.m. local time (4:30 a.m. ET).
The weather is a weird mix of warm sun that keeps hiding behind a big gray cloud sprinkling the cobbles with intermittent drizzle. Groups of firefighters, police and civil guard have ducked into a cafe just off the square to stock up on coffee and cream-filled maritozzi buns.
“It’s been very, very busy,” says one of the a baristas clearing away small plates from the counter, apologizing that they don’t have time to give their name. “It looks like today will be the same.”
The cardinals are casting their ballots using an elaborate, highly scrutinized system which begins with the ballot cards themselves. Said to have been designed by the late Pope Paul VI, who died in 1978, the ballot cards on which each cardinal will write in the name of his preferred candidate are rectangular in shape so that they can be folded in half and read, “Eligo in summum pontificem…” or, “I elect as supreme pontiff…”.
Each cardinal will receive multiple ballots from the masters of ceremonies. After writing his preferred name, he will fold his ballot card over twice. Cardinals may only write the name of one candidate; more than one name would deem their ballot invalid.
Dust off the history books and there are papal conclaves with international intrigue, royal rigging and even riots, a checkered past that belies the air of sanctity and solemnity surrounding modern papal elections.
“The great joy of the conclave is that nobody really knows and it’s such a unique electorate,” James Somerville-Meikle, the former deputy director of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, told NBC News before Francis’ death. “So many conclaves in the past have thrown up surprises.”
The College of Cardinals, he said, has always been faced with two questions: “Do we try something new? Do we go for continuity?”
Take a look at NBC News’ analysis of Cardinals Zuppi, Parolin, Tagle, Erdő, and the other men tipped to be the next leader of 1.4 billion Catholics around the world.
Read the full story here.
Today will see the cardinals assemble for a second day of voting to elect the new pope. They can vote up to four times a day, with two rounds taking place in the morning and two in the afternoon. Meanwhile, crowds continue to gather in St. Peter’s Square and wait for a white smoke signal from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney, which will indicate that the 267th pope has been chosen.
The times below are estimates based on Vatican guidance and the past two conclaves, and can vary throughout the day.
There tends not to be smoke for each of the four votes. Black smoke, for example, will only follow a pair of inconclusive votes. Meanwhile, if a new pope is chosen, white smoke will immediately follow the conclusive vote regardless of whether it’s the first of a pair or the second.
If Vatican guidance is correct, by now the cardinals will have returned to the Sistine Chapel to cast their first votes to elect a new pope. It’s the first of up to four rounds of voting expected to happen throughout the day.
The doors of the Sistine Chapel were sealed Wednesday as the papal conclave got underway. After three hours and fifteen minutes, black smoke billowed from the chimney above the chapel, signaling the cardinals had not yet selected a new pope. NBC News’ Lester Holt reports from the Vatican.
Reporting from Vatican City
When the black smoke finally came after more than three hours last night, for some the mood had sailed way past excitement through anticipation, and it was hovering dangerously close to distraction.
It was soles rather than souls that needed prayer, and standing with limited supplies of food and water became too much for a few of the observers. At one point, a golf cart drove through the throng and collected someone in need of medical attention. Others appeared to leave the square altogether. People kept busy by cheering the occasional seagull that landed next to the chimney or by clapping, perhaps in the hope that those hermetically sealed inside the Sistine Chapel might hear their encouragement.
The long-awaited moment diced with anticlimax. Past 9 p.m. local time, it was too dark to see the chimney against the sky, so most people had their eyes and phones trained on the big screens showing the action. But seconds before the smoke finally arrived, the screens cut out, meaning it was difficult to actually see the moment itself.
For the faithful gathered here, of course, the sideshow drama was not the point.
“I was asking my soul, ‘What’s with the long wait?’” said the Rev. Mac Bean, 27, a priest from Zimbabwe who was wearing a white flat cap and white collar tucked into his blue short-sleeve shirt. “But it’s normal not to get a decision on the first try.”
Meryl Adriano, 41, a teacher from Melbourne, Australia, said: “I don’t mind waiting, because we’re on holiday for two weeks. What’s a few hours when we’ve waited 12 years to see this? There are so many other people waiting, too, they are giving us energy.”
The 133 cardinal electors will shortly return to the Sistine Chapel to commence the second day of the conclave after black smoke billowed from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel last night.
Smoke of that color indicates that no new pope was elected during yesterday’s first round of voting.
According to the Vatican’s schedule, today could see the cardinals casting ballots four times.
After having breakfast, the cardinals have headed to a Mass service before returning to voting, with two ballots cast in the morning starting at 9:15 a.m. local time (3:15 a.m. ET) and two in the afternoon starting at 5:30 p.m. local time (11:30 a.m. ET).
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