You can find NBC’s live blog on the conclave here.
Black smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City around 4:30 a.m. Chicago time, indicating no pope was elected on the second of third ballots of the mysterious and secretive conclave.
Its the second black smoke signal of the conclave, which began Wednesday.
“That indicates that there is still no two-thirds consensus,” NBC 5’s Mary Ann Ahern reported from Vatican City Thursday.
Ahern added that Wednesday’s vote was much longer than expected.
“We thought that it would be, perhaps, 90 minutes or so,” Ahern said. “It ended up being three hours.”
The 133 voting cardinals will now return to the Vatican residences where they are being sequestered for lunch. After that, they will go back to the Sistine Chapel for the afternoon voting session. Voting will occur regularly in the morning and afternoon until a pope is selected, which is signaled by white smoke.
Two more votes are possible today.
“It’s not necessarily surprising that we do not have that consensus yet,” Ahern said. “Of the 133 cardinal electors, 80 percent are new to the conclave.”
When will the smoke rise again?
After voting, ballots are burned in a special stove — black smoke signals no decision, while white smoke means a new pope has been chosen. Before the conclave began, the Vatican press office said that morning smoke would likely rise around noon Rome time, which is about seven hours ahead of Chicago.
When will there be a new Pope?
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, says he hopes that a new pope would be elected by this evening.
“I hope that when I return to Rome this evening, I’ll find the white smoke already rising,” Re said in the city of Pompei, according to Italian newspapers.
Re is 91 years old, which makes him too old to participate in the conclave of 133 cardinals who are electing the next pope and who all have to be younger than 80.
Chicago cardinals playing a big role
The United States counts 10 cardinals among the 133 eligible to vote for the successor to Pope Francis.
With its 10 cardinals representing, the U.S. has the second-most of any nation behind Italy, home to 17 of the electors who gathering for the Vatican conclave.
Only four of the American electors actively serve as archbishops in the U.S.: Timothy Dolan of New York, Chicago archbishop Blase Cupich, Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, and Robert McElroy of Washington. Two are retired archbishops: Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston and Wilton Gregory of Washington.
Gregory was born in Chicago and ordained there in 1973, serving as auxiliary bishop beginning in 1983. After 11 years as bishop in Belleville, Illinois, he was appointed in 2004 by John Paul II to be archbishop of Atlanta.
The other four have had long Vatican service: Chicago-born Robert Prevost, James Michael Harvey, Raymond Burke and Kevin Farrell.
Prevost, 69, is prefect of the Vatican’s powerful dicastery for bishops, in charge of vetting nominations for bishops around the world. He has extensive experience in Peru, first as a missionary and then archbishop. Francis had an eye on him for years, sending him to run the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014. He held that position until 2023, when Francis brought him to Rome for his current role.
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