American cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church described the historic papal conclave that concluded this week as relatively easy, with no arm-twisting or overt politicking. When their work was done — and as the outside world waited to learn the new pope’s identity — the cardinals inside the Sistine Chapel “went wild,” one recalled on…
Anticipation had been building in St. Peter’s Square on Thursday morning as people started to think in earnest that the cardinals would elect a new pope. But when the first smoke of the day came, just before noon, it was black — indicating that there was still no consensus inside the Sistine Chapel, where the…
The largest and most geographically diverse conclave in history was due to resume on Thursday, with Roman Catholic cardinals returning to the Sistine Chapel to try to settle a wide-open papal election. The red-hatted “princes of the Church” started the heavily ritualised process of choosing a new leader for the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics on…
The conclave to elect the next pope is now underway at the Vatican. The cardinals — the prelates who are just below the pope in the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy — will vote by secret ballot for a successor to Pope Francis until one candidate earns a two-thirds majority. While we may not know what’s…
After the men who will select the next pope were locked inside the Sistine Chapel without cellphones on Wednesday, the only thing left to do was wait for them to send a signal to the outside world. By smoke. The highly secret voting began inside what is possibly one of the world’s most secure vaults…
The cardinals gathering for the conclave hope to pick the very best among them to be the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Their culinary expectations are not so high. “Food you could eat at a train station” was how Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, a conclave veteran from the Italian city of Genoa, famous for its…
Inside the Sistine Chapel, the cardinals are taking an oath following the instructions of Pope John Paul II, in a document governing papal conclaves that he issued in 1996. The most senior cardinal reads an oath in Latin and the 133 cardinals will read along, promising to follow the prescribed rules. They also pledge that…
Catholic cardinals who will choose the next pope filed into the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday, before locking themselves away from the world to elect the man they hope can unite a diverse but divided global Church. In a ritual dating back to mediaeval times, 133 cardinal electors will take an oath of perpetual secrecy under…
Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline of France cooed at babies on Sunday at a church in the Monti neighborhood of Rome. Cardinal Peter Erdo of Hungary asked for prayers for fellow cardinals at a church near the Colosseum. Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo of Congo joined priests from across the globe behind the altar of a church in western…
Even before Pope Francis was entombed in a Rome basilica on Saturday, conservative cardinals who felt his pontificate was a divisive disaster that endangered the church’s traditions had begun politicking to sway the conclave electing the next pope. They have a seductively simple slogan: unity. It is hard to imagine a less offensive rallying cry,…