A few hours left to start the Conclave. The 133 Cardinal Electors are located in the Basilica of St. Peter, where the pro Eligendo Pontifice is performed in favor of the election of the new Pope at Vatican. All the cardinals co -operate and dance the oldest of them, the Giovanni Batista Re.
This afternoon, at 4:20 (Italy Time, 5:20 Hours of Greece), the total of the cardinals under 80 years of age, who are involved in the Conclain process, will go from the Paolina chapel to the Sistine Hat in the Vatican where after about ten minutes The gates will close and the first vote will begin.
The cardinals will ask the Holy Spirit to help them in their work and also have the right to ask questions about the details of the whole process.
Of meetings will be promoted Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who is also considered the main “favorite” for the succession of Franciscan, while around 7 this afternoon, Italian time, expected to go out the first tobacco From the stove of the Sistine Hat.
The process of electing a new Pope
Having given the projected vow of confidentiality, without mobile and cut off from the outside world, the Cardinals will start this afternoon, 5:30 pm Greece, the process of voting in camera.
When entering the conclave, everyone is obliged mobile, tablet and smartwatches. If one violates the rules, “then he or she runs the risk of apostasy.”
From tomorrow Thursday (08.05.2025), each day will be held four votes.
One can distinguish the smoke from St. Peter’s Square in 10.30 local time (only in the event of the new Pope’s election) and in the 12 noon.
In the afternoon, in the event of a good vote, white smoke will come out at around 5.30, otherwise the chimney and stove of the Sistine hat will be used at the end of the day and after the fourth vote, at around 7.30pm Italy.
That is, this means that if the desired result has not emerged earlier, the cardinal ballots will burn on the stove of the Sistine hat at the end of their morning and afternoon session.
The voting process
For voting in the morning and afternoon, in two different sessions, nine cardinals are selected by chance, which take on specific roles in each session: Three auditors oversee the vote, three infirmarii, as they are called, gather patients’ votes and three reviewers confirming the results.
Each cardinal writes his choice on a paper with the Latin words “I elect as a supreme modifice”. They approach the Holy Bank one by one and say, “I call as my witness, Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to Him who, before God, I believe must be elected.”
The folded ballot is placed in a round container. The ballots are then opened one by one of three virals, who note the names and read them loud.
The cardinals can keep their own counting on a paper provided, but they must deliver their notes to burn at the end of the vote.
The auditors then add the votes and write the results on separate paper, which is kept in the papal files.
As the controller reads each name, it punches each ballot paper with a needle through the word “eligo” (Latin for “I choose”), ties the ballots with a thread and ties a knot.
The ballots are then set aside and burned on the chapel stove with a chemist to produce white or black smoke-white when a new pope and black is elected when not elected.