Black smoke signals no pope on first day of conclave

Mangalore Today News Network/NDTV

Vatican City, Marck 12, 2013: The cardinals of the Catholic Church held their first ballot Tuesday to elect a pope from among them, with black smoke signaling no winner on the first day of their conclave inside the Sistine Chapel.

 

Night had fallen by the time the smoke rose, but people who had flocked to St. Peter’s Square on this cold, rainy evening could watch the spotlighted chimney on giant screens set up in St. Peter’s Square. Some shrieked in excitement as the smoke began billowing out.

The outcome was expected, since all 115 of the cardinals are theoretically candidates, and the winner must receive two-thirds, or 77, of the votes. In past modern conclaves, the first ballot essentially served as a primary, when a number of cardinals emerged as leading vote-getters. Subsequent rounds made clear where the votes were flowing. The smoke will be white when a pope is elected.

The cardinals, who are staying in seclusion in the Vatican’s Santa Marta residence, will return to the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday morning. The schedule calls for two rounds of voting in the morning and two in the evening, as needed.

The conclave began 12 days after Benedict XVI became the first pope in modern times to renounce the throne of Peter. It was a period fraught with tense discussions about what kind of pope was needed for a church threatened by secularism, the scandal of clerical sex abuse and a Vatican bureaucracy stippled with corruption.

The script was clear for the cardinals, and Vatican television showed the conclave’s opening pageantry. They glided two by two from the Pauline Chapel in the Apostolic Palace, through the Sala Reggia and into the Sistine Chapel, approached the altar and bowed before it.

They took their places behind tables placed along the length of the chapel’s walls, with green ritual books, red folders and folded placards with their names on them. They placed their birettas - square, peaked crimson hats - in front of them.

The cardinals, led by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, an Italian and the senior cardinal present, collectively swore, in Latin, to maintain secrecy and obedience to the constitution on papal transition. They also made an oath that if elected they would faithfully carry out the duties of a pope and defend the Holy See. Each then individually swore adherence with a hand on the gospel, in a Latin accented by their native languages - German, American, Arabic, Spanish, and so on.

Then the papal master of ceremonies, Monsignor Guido Marini, pronounced the words "extra omnes": everyone out. Several dozen attendants, clergymen and at least three members of the Vatican press office left. Marini was then shown closing the two carved wooden doors, with a loud click. The procession and oaths took about an hour.

After listening to a meditation pronounced by a clergyman and bidding farewell to him and Marini, the princes of the church got down to business.

In the morning, the cardinals celebrated a Mass led by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who gave the last major public statement by a Vatican prelate before the church’s next supreme pontiff emerges.

"St. Paul teaches that each of us must work to build up the unity of the church," the cardinal said in his homily. "All of us are therefore called to cooperate with the pastors, in particular with the successor of Peter, to obtain that unity of the holy church."

He also spoke of the church’s charitable and evangelizing mission and prayed for the future pope to continue to promote peace and justice around the world. The cardinal has long been one of the most influential figures in the Vatican and the ultimate insider, serving both John Paul II and Benedict as secretary of state. He mentioned both several times.

He referred to the "luminous pontificate" of the "beloved and venerated Pontiff Benedict XVI, to whom in this moment we renew our profound gratitude," drawing long applause from the worshipers. A number of the cardinals, but not all, clapped modestly. Benedict, now bearing the title pope emeritus, was at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, a nearby hill town.

Since March 4, they have spent each day meeting as a whole for formal discussions. On Monday, the last day, they heard a report on the Vatican bank, which is facing criticism over its lack of transparency and adherence to international banking standards.

The homily, closely grounded in Gospel readings, was markedly different from the last such speech, which was given by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger ahead of the 2005 conclave that chose him pope. Then, Ratzinger delivered a sharp warning against departing from fundamental Catholic teaching, denouncing what he called a "dictatorship of relativism" that leaves "only one’s ego and desires" as the ultimate measure.

That showing was considered a factor in his election.

Sodano will not take part in this conclave. He is over the age limit of 80.

"It wasn’t anything like Ratzinger’s," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University who was in Rome following the conclave. "That was tough. This was more like a homily on the readings than an agenda for action."

Christopher M. Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in Union, N.J., suggested that Sodano might have been issuing a "plea for gentleness" to the cardinals who may be looking for a pope to shake up the bureaucracy of the Vatican.

"It’s pretty clear there’s going to be a night of the long knives," he said.

At the outset of the Mass, which was open to the public, the cardinals moved slowly down the central aisle of St. Peter’s Basilica in pairs, a wash of crimson robes and white mitres as Gregorian chant echoed through the cavernous Baroque space. They held their hands clasped in front, approached the altar, bent in reverence and parted ways to take their places. Readings took place in Swahili, Portuguese, French, Italian, English, Spanish and German.

Candidates will build up blocks of votes over succeeding rounds. Two are scheduled in the morning and two in the afternoon each day.

The process was set in motion Feb. 11, when Benedict announced he would resign because of waning strength in his old age, unprecedented in modern times. A helicopter lifted him away from the Vatican on Feb. 28 and took him to Castel Gandolfo, where he is to remain in seclusion for several months until returning to a convent in the Vatican.

The Vatican has said that none of the cardinals, who had been meeting daily to discuss the needs of the church and the expectations of a future pope, had sought him out.