Conclave kicks off with black smoke after fractious week of lobbying and intrigue

VATICAN CITY — The official start of the secretive ritual to elect a new pope marked a dramatic cap on a week of cleric-on-cleric bickering, intrigue and outright scandal.

On Wednesday afternoon, 133 cardinals of the Catholic Church filed into the Sistine Chapel, which had been fitted with polling booths and swept for bugs. The Litany of Saints thundered off Bernini’s marbled colonnades from speakers set up in St. Peter’s Square, as TV crews from around the world filmed the mesmerizing procession from huge scaffolds and speculated on papal plays like sports broadcasters.

After each cardinal gave his name and swore an oath of secrecy in Latin under Michelangelo’s frescoes, archbishop Diego Ravelli intoned: Extra Omnes — all out. All but the voting cardinals left the chapel, and its doors heaved shut.

As the first vote commenced under lock and key, outside observers — from the lowliest pilgrim to the most powerful world leader — could do little but watch the internationally livestreamed Sistine Chapel chimney and wait for the plumes of white smoke that would indicate a new pontiff had been chosen.

How and when the next pope will be elected is anyone’s guess. Each day will see four rounds of voting as cardinals seek the two-thirds majority required for the next pope. Black smoke will pour from the specially erected chimney for every two inconclusive ballots; as soon as they settle on a name, it’ll be the white smoke.

After that, a protodeacon (a senior cardinal) will stand on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and declare habemus papam: We have a pope.

The votes come after a turbulent week that exposed divisions in the global Church under Pope Francis’ tumultuous papacy, which was marked by profound disagreements between progressive-minded clerics and those resisting change.

Since Francis’ death, cardinals have been gathering in a sterile conference hall in Vatican City for pre-conclave huddles that served as a chance to lobby for preferred candidates, form voting blocs and, more prosaically, get to know one another — something few have had the chance to do since the late pope curtailed regular meetings and dramatically expanded the global reach of the cardinalate.

As insiders told POLITICO on Wednesday, the last few general congregations saw momentum grow for a “continuity” candidate who would continue Francis’ policies of tolerance toward LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups and, perhaps more significantly, give more latitude to clerics in the global south, where Church membership is growing at a rapid clip. 

Names of frontrunners —  to be taken with communion-wafer-sized grains of salt — have surfaced.

One is Maltese Cardinal Mario Grech, who presided over the so-called synods, consultative bodies intended to give more power in daily church decision-making to laypeople, women and small peripheral churches.

Another is Cardinal Robert Prevost, an American who served in both Latin America and Rome, and is considered a potential bridge-builder between opposing factions. Earlier this week Prevost gave a speech calling for more participation in the selection of bishops, who are normally chosen by the pope, from local bishops’ conferences, a key demand of groups protesting clerical abuse, according to one cardinal that POLITICO spoke with.

The Catholic faithful waited side by side with the world’s media in St. Peter’s Square to see whether cardinals would elect a new pope on Wednesday evening. | Ben Munster/POLITICO

That momentum comes as the stars of earlier frontrunners wane. Those include Holy See Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, a hardened Vatican diplomat who built a broad coalition among clerics who wanted a more reformist approach to the papacy that would preserve Church institutions without a total rupture with Francis’ radicalism. But skepticism from progressives, as well as a coordinated smear campaign, may have hurt Parolin’s chances.

Twists and turns were par for the course in the pre-conclave lobbying period. Giovanni Angelo Becciu, once the Holy See’s chief of staff, withdrew from the conclave in connection with a 2023 conviction over a fraudulent London real estate scheme using Vatican funds.

Some episodes were more comic than dramatic: One cardinal persistently failed to locate his seat in the general congregations, landing on a different one every time, according to the cardinal quoted above.

With any luck, the cardinals will have an easier time choosing a new pope than that confused old cleric had in locating his chair. But there’s no sign of consensus yet: After that first vote Wednesday, it was only black smoke — after a longer-than-expected three-hour wait — that darkened the Roman sky.