All eyes and ears on Conclave

The conclave to elect the Catholic Church’s 266th Pontiff and St. Peter’s 265th successor gets underway in the Vatican on Tuesday, March 12, with some 5600 journalists and hundreds of cameras of the world’s media glued to the famous chimney atop the Sistine Chapel to know who the next spiritual leader of the world’s some 1.2 billion Catholics will be. The 115 Cardinal Electors who have already been allotted accommodation by lots at the Domus Santae Marthae residence inside Vatican City, will take up their rooms early Tuesday morning. At 10.00 am, they along with other cardinals will concelebrate the “Pro Eligendo Summo Pontefice” votive Mass for the election of the new Pope, in St. Peter’s Basilica, led by the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano. All faithful have been invited for the Mass. At 3.45 pm in the evening, the cardinal electors will transfer to the Pauline Chapel in the Apostolic Palace, from where at 4.30 pm they set will out in procession from there to the Sistine Chapel, chanting the Litany of Saints and the Latin hum to the Holy Spirit, ‘Veni Creator Spiritus”. 
Besides the cardinal electors, the procession, which will be telecast live, will include also others, such as the choir, secretary of the conclave, the preacher Cardinal Prosper Grech and Msgr. Guido Marini, the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations. At the Sistine Chapel, after the oath of secrecy is administered by the Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re (the senior-most cardinal bishop), Msgr. Guido Marini, the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations will ask all non-voters to leave the Sistine Chapel with the Latin command, “Extra Omnes,” meaning ‘all out.” After Card. Prosper Grech, preaches a meditation to the cardinal electors, he along with Msgr. Marini will also leave the Sistine Chapel, for Cardinal Re to take charge of the proceedings of the polling and scrutiny in total secrecy. The world’s most famous smoke signal from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel, will be the first indication whether or not a new pope has been elected. Black smoke will mean no pope as yet; white smoke will mean we have a new pope with two-thirds majority. Fr. Lombardi informed that the first smoke signal of the 2005 Conclave that later elected Pope Benedict XVI was at 8.04 pm. He said Tuesday’s smoke could be around that time.