VATICAN CITY
The Independent (UK)
VATICAN CITY
Sunday 10 March 2013
Firefighters installed a special top on the Sistine Chapel chimney yesterday, ready for the signal to the world that a new pope has been elected, as the Vatican took measures to end Benedict XVI’s pontificate.
While construction workers prepared the interior of the frescoed Sistine Chapel for Tuesday’s start of the conclave, officials elsewhere in the Apostolic Palace destroyed Benedict’s fisherman’s ring and the personal seals and stamps for official papers. The act, coupled with Benedict’s public resignation and pledge of obedience to the future pope, is designed to signal a definitive end of his papacy so there is no doubt in the church that a new pope is in charge.
The developments all point toward the momentous decision to confront the Catholic church: Tuesday’s start of the conclave to elect a new pope to lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics and try to solve the problems facing the church.
The Vatican outlined the timeline for the balloting, and confirmed that the bells of St Peter’s Basilica will ring once a pope has been elected. But Vatican officials also acknowledged that there is some uncertainty about the whole endeavour, given the difficulties in discerning the colour of smoke that will snake out of the Sistine chimney – black if no pope has been elected, white when a victor has emerged. A Vatican spokesman, the Rev Federico Lombardi, laughed off concerns, saying that some “suspense” was all part of the beauty of the process.
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