When a pope is elected, white smoke will emerge from the chapel and the bells of St Peter’s will peal.
The cardinals were shut inside on Tuesday for the first time, after a day of religious pomp and prayer to prepare for the task.
Only one vote was held on Tuesday night, ending inconclusively as expected, with black smoke billowing from a chimney above the chapel to signal no pope had been elected.
No modern conclave has reached a decision on the first day,so the lack of an outcome on Tuesday’s single vote was no surprise.
Before the doors of the chapel were shut, all the cardinals below the age of 80, when the papal seat was declared vacant on February 28, made an oath of secrecy in Latin before the voting started.
The cardinals will now vote four times daily until two-thirds can agree on a candidate. If after 33 or 34 ballots no pope is elected, the two candidates with the highest votes will go into a runoff in which only a simple majority is required.
Flexible changes
Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Vatican City on Tuesday, said there was a perception, particularly in Europe, that the church needed to be more flexible with changes in the modern world.
She said there was no clear frontrunner but about a dozen names had emerged as likely candidates to be the next pope.
Al Jazeera’s Barbara Serra, reporting from St Peter’s Square in Rome on Tuesday, said Archbishop Angelo Scola of Milan was the bookmakers’ favourite.
“He is seen as a safe pair of hands,” she said.
But she said the fact that he is Italian would count against him as there was a large push within the church to elect a non-European as pope.
Possible candidates from the developing world include Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, Argentina-born Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, and Cardinal Odilo Scherer, the archbishop of Sao Paulo in Brazil who is of German descent.
‘Last tweet’
Jamming devices in the Sistine Chapel have blocked all communications and the Vatican has also been checked for any bugging devices.
The Vatican has said anyone caught contacting anyone outside the conclave will be excommunicated.
Cardinals including, South Africa’s Wilfrid Napier, took to Twitter on Tuesday to say goodbye to their online flock before they were cut off from the outside world.
“Last tweet before conclave,” Napier told his thousands of followers.
“May Our Father hear and answer with love and mercy all prayers and sacrifices offered for fruitful outcome. God bless!”
It was a modern sign-off before a centuries-old tradition was due to begin.
The tradition of holding conclaves goes back to the 13th century when cardinals were locked into the papal palace in Viterbo near Rome by the angry faithful because they were taking too long to make their decision.
Benedict stunned the world on February 11, announcing that he no longer had the strength of body and mind to keep up with a fast-changing modern world shaken by vital questions for the Roman Catholic Church.
Well whoever the Pope is one thing is for sure he will be the cheerleader and mouthpiece for the New World Order.