Tens of thousands of people gathered in St Peter’s Square to await the smoke, which came around three hours and 15 minutes after the 133 cardinals were closed in.
Cardinals were called back to Rome following the death of Pope Francis on April 21 after 12 years as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
Locked away to avoid distraction, their only means of communicating the outcome is by burning their ballots with chemicals to produce smoke.
This conclave is the largest and the most international ever, assembling cardinals from around 70 countries -- many of whom did not previously know each other.
But the challenges facing the 2,000-year-old institution are clear.
There is also the continued fall-out from the clerical child abuse scandal and -- in the West -- increasingly empty pews.
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.
The screens went black at 9 pm (1900 GMT), eliciting groans from the crowds, minutes before the black smoke was spotted wafting from the chimney -- bringing on a new wave of disappointed reaction.
“I don’t mind that it’s black smoke, it shows the Holy Spirit is at work. There will be other votes soon enough, we will get our pope,“ he told AFP.
They took a group oath of secrecy before each cardinal approached the altar to utter his personal vow not to reveal what happened in the conclave, on pain of excommunication.
The conclave’s master of ceremonies then declared “Extra omnes” -- “Everybody out” in Latin -- and then shut the heavy doors of the chapel.
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.
The cardinals joined a mass in St Peter’s Basilica ahead of the conclave on Wednesday morning, where Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, offered some final advice.
“This is also a strong call to maintain the unity of the Church... a unity that does not mean uniformity, but a firm and profound communion in diversity.”
Battista Re himself is too old to vote.
Women protest
Burning issues include falling priest numbers, the role of women, the Vatican’s troubled balance sheets and how to adapt the Church to the modern world.
Meanwhile across Rome, women’s rights activists gathered to protest the absence of women in the conclave.
Some 80 percent of the cardinals voting were appointed by Francis -- an impulsive yet charismatic champion of the downtrodden.
More than a dozen names are circulating, from Italian Pierbattista Pizzaballa to Hungary’s Peter Erdo and Sri Lanka’s Malcolm Ranjith.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Black smoke: Cardinals fail to elect new pope on first try )
Also on site :