VATICAN CITY
The New York Times
By DANIEL J. WAKIN and ALAN COWELL
Published: March 13, 2013
VATICAN CITY — Black smoke billowed from a makeshift copper chimney atop the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday, signaling that the 115 cardinals of the Catholic Church eligible to vote for a new pope had again failed to muster majority support for a successor to Benedict XVI and that balloting would continue until they do.
A first vote ended inconclusively on Tuesday, and the inky black smoke a day later indicated continuing divisions in two subsequent ballots on Wednesday among the cardinals over what kind of pope they want to confront the pressing, sometimes conflicting, demands for change after years of scandal.
“It’s more or less what we expected,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said of the first three ballots. In relatively recent times, he said. only Pope Pius XII, whose papacy spanned World War II and lasted from 1939 to 1958, had been chosen on the third ballot.
Voting is set to continue on Wednesday afternoon and onward — with up to two rounds each morning and afternoon — until the cardinals reach a two-thirds majority of 77 votes.
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