No pope elected on cardinals’ first vote

The conclave to select a new leader of the Roman Catholic Church is underway.

Vatican City • Black smoke puffed from a chimney above the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday night, signaling that 133 cardinals sequestered inside had not reached a decision in a first round of voting for a new pope to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics.

The initial vote had not been expected to yield a pontiff. The cardinals, the most ever to gather in a papal conclave, will retire to guest quarters at the Vatican and return Thursday morning to continue voting. They will remain isolated during their deliberations, without phone or internet access and under oaths of total secrecy, until a two-thirds majority agrees on a candidate.

The first conclave in more than a decade, a little more than two weeks after Pope Francis’ death set in motion the process of choosing his successor, comes during an uncertain time for the church, which is facing difficult decisions about its future direction, strained finances and a reckoning over past sexual abuse scandals.

After a morning Mass, the conclave began as the cardinals, all men and nearly all older than 50, filed in a solemn procession into the Sistine Chapel, where they took assigned seats at long wooden tables under the soaring frescoes of Renaissance masters.

The papal election is one of the world’s oldest dramas, but this one is unlike any before it, with many cardinals appointed by Francis meeting one another for the first time. The new faces bring unfamiliar politics, priorities and concerns that some experts say could make the selection process more fragmented than usual. Francis also left the church deeply divided, with progressive factions pushing for more inclusion and change and conservatives seeking to roll things back, often under the guise of preserving unity.

Here’s what to know:

How it works: The cardinals will participate in four rounds of voting every day until a candidate achieves a two-thirds majority. The ballots are burned after two rounds of voting, and the smoke above the Sistine Chapel signals whether a decision has been made — black smoke for no decision, white if there is a pope. There is no indication of how long it will take, though the last two conclaves reached decisions within two days.

Possible successors: Predicting the outcome of a papal election is always challenging, but oddsmakers say two top contenders are Cardinal Pietro Parolin of Italy, who was Francis’ second-in-command, and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, a country where the church is growing rapidly.

Referendum on Francis: The election in many ways will turn on whether the cardinals want a pope who will follow Francis’ path of openness and inclusion or forge a different one. During his 12-year pontificate, Francis made global headlines for landmark declarations that encouraged liberals, including allowing the blessing of people in same-sex unions and raising his voice for migrants.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.