WASHINGTON, April 12 (UPI) -- If the past is anything to go by, the newly installed iron stove in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican is likely to cause the usual confusion in next week's election of the new pope. The main purpose of the stove is to burn the ballot papers from the latest round of voting to prevent them from becoming public. But the stove is attached to a chimney on the chapel's roof. White smoke from it is supposed to announce the election of the pope to the waiting crowd in St Peter's Square. Black smoke from the chimney will signal an inconclusive round of voting.
In recent conclaves, or papal elections, wisps of grey smoke drifting across the square have failed to give a clear indication whether a new pontiff had been elected, or whether the cardinals would have to vote again. In the past, wet straw was added in an attempt to produce white smoke, usually without the desired result. In the last conclave in 1979 the straw was replaced by white smoke canisters supplied by the Italian army -- and still the effect was a smudgy grey.
Which may be why Pope John Paul amended the conclave rules and regulations -- known by the opening words in Latin "Universi Dominici Gregis"-- to add the more reliable tolling of the bells of St Peter's Basilica to the smoke signals when the pope has been elected. Within the hour the world will learn for whom the bells toll as the pontiff himself makes his first public appearance on the stone balcony of the basilica.
On Monday, 105 cardinals under the age of 80 will convene in the Sistine Chapel. They will pray for guidance to the Holy Spirit, and then begin voting for each other four times a day -- with two ballots in the morning and two in the afternoon -- until one of them receives two-thirds plus one of the vote.
Another of John Paul's innovations was to order a hotel built in the Vatican to house the cardinals during the conclave. For centuries the cardinals were squeezed into small sleeping quarters in the halls and offices of the Vatican Palace, converted into makeshift rooms with wood partitions. After every conclave cardinals complained about the cramped spaces and shortage of bathrooms.
But the discomfort was partly intended to pressure the cardinals into speeding up the election. Whether the functional but comfortable accommodation in the new Casa di Santa Marta (St Martha's House) with its 106 suites, 22 single rooms, and one apartment, and its dining room with round tables that seat six (in the past food was delivered to the cardinals through a hatch left open in a sealed door) will induce them to prolong the election has yet to be seen. Vatican experts were predicting Tuesday that the conclave would not last longer than three to four days.
The cardinals will be incommunicado for the duration of the election. Computers, cellphones, and television sets are barred from St Martha's House. The electors have also taken a life-long oath never to reveal the details of the election. Ensconced with them are two medical doctors, monks of different nationalities to hear their confession; Rome firefighters to tend the stove, and nuns to cook the meals and clean the rooms. Three new urns of silver and bronze will be used for the first time to collect the ballots -- two for the Sistine Chapel, and the third to collect the votes of cardinals who are unwell and confined to their rooms.
One of the decisions waiting for the new pope will be what action to take on a petition signed this week by many -- but by no means all -- of the members of the college of cardinals requesting the immediate canonization of Pope John Pail II. At their daily meetings this week the cardinals discussed calls from the public to declare the late pontiff a saint by acclamation. During the funeral mass in St Peter's Square Friday, thousands of worshippers chanted (Santo, santo!) and carried banners saying "Make him a saint NOW." Canonization by acclamation was not unusual in the early church, but the cardinals decided that the more orderly modern process of creating new saints should be allowed to take its course.
A large group of cardinals signed a petition to the new pope asking him to speed things up, but Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro Valls said, "Only the future pontiff can make a decision regarding sainthood for Pope John Paul."
