Black smoke at the Vatican, no pope yet
VATICAN CITY
Cardinals failed again on 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.
The black smoke poured out at 11:50 a.m. after the second and third ballots to elect a pope to lead the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church.
With no one securing the necessary two-thirds majority, or 89 votes, the 133 cardinals will return to the Vatican residences where they are being sequestered. They were to have lunch and then return to the Sistine Chapel for the afternoon voting session. Two more votes were possible on Thursday.
The cardinals had returned to the Sistine Chapel yesterday to resume voting for a new pope and crowds flocked back to St. Peter's Square to await their decision, after the first conclave ballot failed to find a winner during a longer-than-expected voting session on May 7 afternoon.
The billowing black smoke poured out of the chapel chimney just after 9 p.m. on May 7, about 4.5 hours after the cardinals filed into the chapel.
Some of the 133 voting cardinals had said they expected a short conclave to replace Pope Francis. But it will likely take a few rounds of voting for one man to secure the two-thirds majority, or 89 ballots, necessary to become the 267th pope.
