Tens of thousands of people gathered in Vatican City’s St Peter’s Square as cardinals voted in first ballot.
Thick black smoke has emerged from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney, signalling that the cardinals sealed off inside have failed to elect a new pope in their first conclave vote.
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Vatican City’s St Peter’s Square to await the smoke, which came about three hours and 15 minutes after the 133 cardinals were sequestered.
Cardinals from about 70 countries were called back to Rome following Pope Francis’s death on April 21 after 12 years as head of the Catholic Church. As they were shut off from the outside world on Wednesday, their mobile phones were surrendered, and airwaves around the Vatican were jammed to prevent communications until a new pope is elected.
The cardinals will return to the Sistine Chapel on Thursday to vote again, and will continue to do so until one of them secures a two-thirds majority – 89 votes – to be elected pope.
The start of the conclave, with a solemn procession of cardinals and other clergy into the Sistine Chapel, was streamed live on large screens in front of St Peter’s Basilica.
Huge crowds waited in St Peter’s Square, watching screens that showed the chimney and the occasional seagull. While some left in frustration, those who stayed cheered when the smoke finally billowed out.
“It would be perfect, lovely to be here for a new pope,” said Irish tourist Catriona Hawe, 60.
“Francis was brilliant, progressive, a man of the people, though he didn’t move things forward as quickly as I would have liked,” she said.
“The Church won’t be doing itself any favours if it elects someone conservative.”
Black smoke emerged from the chimney over the Sistine Chapel at 21:00 on Wednesday evening, signalling that a first ballot has been held at the conclave and has concluded without the election of a Pope. pic.twitter.com/AKxuUbDK2g
— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) May 7, 2025
Reporting from Vatican City, Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid said the black smoke, signifying that a new pope had not been elected, was expected.
“In no living memory has there been a pope that was elected on the first day of the conclave,” she said.
“Usually this first vote is a way for the cardinals to understand how things are going and in which direction their fellow electors are thinking,” before they return to the guesthouse where they are staying for the election, said Abdel-Hamid.
Francis named 108 of the 133 “princes of the church,” choosing many pastors from countries including Mongolia, Sweden and Tonga that had never had a cardinal before.
His decision to surpass the usual limit of 120 cardinal electors has injected an extra degree of uncertainty in a process that is always full of suspense.
Many cardinals had not met until last week and lamented they needed more time to get to know one another, raising questions about how long it might take for one man to secure the votes necessary to become the 267th pope.
Both Francis and his predecessor, Benedict XVI, were elected within two days, but the longest papal election lasted 1,006 days, from 1268 to 1271.
Challenges facing the Church
There is no clear frontrunner to succeed Francis, with the cardinals representing a range of progressive and conservative traditions within the Church. More than a dozen names are circulating, from Italian Pierbattista Pizzaballa to Hungary’s Peter Erdo and Sri Lanka’s Malcolm Ranjith.
But there are numerous challenges facing the 2,000-year-old institution: falling priest numbers, the role of women, the Vatican’s troubled balance sheets, adapting the Church to the modern world, the continued fallout from the clerical child abuse scandal and – in the West – increasingly empty pews.
The new pope will also have to face diplomatic balancing acts at a time of geopolitical uncertainty, as well as deep splits within the Church.
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