“ONCE IN A LIFETIME”
Among the crowds of tourists and pilgrims in St Peter’s Square on Friday morning, the installation of the chimney on the Sistine Chapel – a thin metal tube with a capped top – went largely unnoticed.
But many were aware that history is in the making.
“It definitely is a historic moment, and it definitely feels special to be in Rome,” said Glenn Atherton, a Briton visiting from London.
“It feels like a once in a lifetime thing,” he told AFP.
There are 135 cardinals eligible to vote in the conclave, but two have withdrawn for health reasons.
The conclave is due to begin at 4.30pm (10.30pm, Singapore time) on Wednesday, when the cardinals will take an oath to maintain the secrecy of the election, on pain of excommunication.
That first day, they will hold one ballot, with the winner, technically any baptised male, but in reality always one of their own, needing a two-thirds majority, or 89 votes, to win.
During the following days, they will hold two votes in the morning and two in the afternoon.
If a winner is elected, the ballots will be burned in the special stove with the addition of chemicals to emit a white smoke to alert the waiting world to the decision.
If no candidate has enough votes during the first morning vote, the cardinals will proceed to a second vote, and only after that point will the ballots be burned.
The afternoon session follows the same procedure – if a pope is elected, there will be white smoke, but if not, the cardinals will proceed to a second vote and only after that will the ballots be burned.
If no pope is elected, the smoke that comes out of the chimney is black.
The ancient signalling system – still the only way the public learns whether a pope has been elected – used to involve mixing wet straw with the ballots to produce white smoke, and tarry pitch to create black smoke.
After several episodes in which greyish smoke caused confusion, the Vatican introduced a new system in 2005.
At the last conclave in 2013, the Vatican said it used a mixture of potassium perchlorate, anthracene and sulphur to produce black smoke and potassium chlorate, lactose and rosin for white.
Two stoves stand in a corner of the chapel, one for burning the ballots and the other for the chemicals, with the smoke from both stoves going up a common flue, it said back then.
Details for the procedure of next week’s conclave have not yet been confirmed.
Source: CNA
