If You're Seeing A Ton Of Headlines About White Smoke At The Conclave, Here's Exactly What That Means

The 133 cardinals who assembled successful the Vatican for the top-secret conclave person chosen a caller pontiff to regenerate the precocious Pope Francis, who died astatine property 88 past month.

Plumes of achromatic fume streaming from a Sistine Chapel chimney Thursday signaled that a caller person of the Roman Catholic Church ― a religion with much than 1 cardinal followers ― had been selected by a two-thirds bulk ballot of the cardinals, the church’s astir elder clergy nether the pope. The caller pope typically appears connected the Vatican balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square within an hour of the fume billowing.

The 267th pontiff was selected aft respective rounds of voting implicit 2 days. In 2013, it took 5 rounds of voting successful nether 2 days for the cardinals to take Francis. The fastest conclave lasted lone 10 hours successful 1503, portion the longest lasted astir 3 years successful 1268.

The conclave initiated Wednesday greeting section time, opening with mass, prayers and oath-taking earlier the archetypal ballot that evening. Italian media reported that the Vatican deactivated each compartment telephone signals and activated awesome jammers successful the country to forestall immoderate surveillance of the proceedings.

Any of the participating cardinals could beryllium named the adjacent pope ― and technically, religion rules authorities that immoderate Catholic antheral is eligible for the relation ― but lone a fistful of cardinals are viewed arsenic the top contenders. And though determination are 252 members of the College of Cardinals, lone those nether 80 are eligible electors. Among the 133 who voted, the Argentine-born Francis had appointed 108 of them ― lending him sizable posthumous power connected who’s been chosen arsenic his successor.

This conclave has been the astir geographically divers 1 successful history, with cardinals hailing from 71 countries, including 17 from Africa, 23 from Asia, 37 from the Americas and 4 from Oceania. The remaining 52 are from Europe, the birthplace of each pope but Francis for the past 1,300 years.

This nonfiction primitively appeared on HuffPost.