Black smoke billows from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel during the conclave to elect a successor of late Pope Francis, at the Vatican, Thursday, May 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
VATICAN CITY – Cardinals failed again Thursday morning to find a successor to Pope Francis, sending black smoke billowing up through the Sistine Chapel chimney after two more inconclusive rounds of conclave voting.
With no candidate securing the necessary two-thirds majority, or 89 votes, the world will need to wait longer for a new leader of the Catholic Church. The 133 cardinals took a lunch break before returning to the Sistine Chapel for Thursday’s afternoon voting session, where two more ballots were possible.
Despite the disappointment, hopes were still high that a pope would be chosen quickly, perhaps as early as Thursday afternoon’s fourth or fifth ballot.
“I hope by this evening, returning to Rome, I’ll find white smoke,” said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the 91-year-old dean of the College of Cardinals who presided over the Mass before the conclave. Re is not participating in the balloting because only cardinals under 80 are eligible to cast votes.
Re, who was quoted by Italian media as speaking Thursday in Pompeii, said he was certain the 133 cardinals would elect “the pope that the church and world need today.”
The voting follows a strict choreography, dictated by church law.
Each cardinal writes his choice on a piece of paper inscribed with the words “Eligo in summen pontificem” — “I elect as Supreme Pontiff.” They approach the altar one by one and say: “I call as my witness, Christ the Lord who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who, before God, I think should be elected.”
The folded ballot is placed on a round plate and tipped into a silver and gold urn. Once cast, the ballots are opened one by one by three different “scrutineers,” cardinals selected at random who write down the names and read them aloud.
The scrutineers, whose work is checked by other cardinals called revisors, then add up the results of each round of balloting and write it down on a separate sheet of paper, which is preserved in the papal archives.
As the scrutineer reads out each name, he pierces each ballot with a needle through the word “Eligo.” All the ballots are then bound together with thread, and the bundle is put aside and burned in the chapel stove along with a chemical to produce the smoke.
