Joseph Ratzinger is the NEW POPE!

As you may already know, these days the Cardinals sequestered in the Sistine Chapel to elect a pope use an iron stove and its narrow metal chimney to announce their decision.

Black smoke means they have failed; white smoke means they have succeeded.

It seems that WHITE SMOKE was seen a few minutes ago over the special metal chimney!

A new POPE has been elected!?? Judge for yourself:

GOD BLESS!

The STATUS in this very moment: Smoke is coming from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel -- but it's uncertain whether it's the white smoke that would signal election of a new pope.

Vatican Radio said it's hard to tell if the smoke is black or white. Black smoke would signify that cardinals again failed to elect a pope.

But the crowd below in St. Peter's Square responded with cheers -- many apparently believing the smoke signified that a pope had been chosen.

No bells are being heard. The Vatican had said bells would ring to accompany white smoke announcing that the cardinals had chosen a successor to Pope John Paul.

I bet that White smoke is rising from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel and the main ceremonial bell is ringing-- indicating that a new pope has been selected for the Roman Catholic Church.

IT IS Official:
White smoke has been seen from the Sistine Chapel chimney indicating that a new pope has been elected. The bells of St Peter's Basilica rang out shortly after 1800 local time (1600 GMT) to confirm the news!

WE HAVE A NEW POPE!
Stay tuned and you'll find out here on the PYM BLOG who he is!

German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the strict defender of Catholic orthodoxy for the past 23 years, was elected Pope on Tuesday despite a widespread assumption he was too old and divisive to win election.
He took the name Benedict XVI, a cardinal announced to crowds in St. Peter's Square after white smoke from the Vatican's Sistine Chapel chimney and the pealing of bells from St. Peter's Basilica announced that a new pope had been chosen.

Roman Catholic cardinals elected Ratzinger on just the second day of secret conclave to find a successor to Pope John Paul II.

Billed as the front-runner going into the conclave, Ratzinger, 78, was widely seen as a standard-bearer who would fall short of the required two-thirds majority and have to cede to a more conciliatory compromise figure.

But he sounded very much the candidate before going into the conclave on Monday, defending orthodox Catholicism and warning the other 114 cardinal electors against following godless modern trends.

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires," he declared at a pre-conclave Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

Ratzinger's stern leadership of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the modern successor to the Inquisition, delighted conservative Catholics but upset moderates and other Christians whose churches he described as deficient.

Born in Bavaria on April 16, 1927, Ratzinger was a leading theology professor and then archbishop of Munich before taking over the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1981.

In that office, Ratzinger disciplined Latin American "liberation theology" theologians, denounced homosexuality and gay marriage and pressured Asian priests who saw non-Christian religions as part of God's plan for humanity.

In a document in 2000, he branded other Christian churches as deficient -- shocking Anglicans, Lutherans and other Protestants in ecumenical dialogue with Rome for years.

As dean of the College of Cardinals, he presided over John Paul's funeral Mass and the daily meetings of cardinals to discuss the next papacy.

Ratzinger was the oldest cardinal to be named pope since Clement XII, who was also 78 when he became pope in 1730. He is the first German pope since Victor II (1055-1057).

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It's unclear when the tradition began, but smoke signals have been used continuously since at least 1878.


There is little record of color confusion until the 1958 conclave, when the damp straw that the cardinals had added to their burning ballots apparently failed to catch, and the initial smoke was white.

There was some confusion Monday when the first wisps of smoke appeared white to some observers. But it quickly became clear that it was black.

The Vatican said after Pope John Paul II's death that special chemicals would be added to help avoid confusion.

Archbishop Piero Marini, master of ceremonies for liturgical celebrations, also has said when a new pope is chosen, the Vatican will ring the bells of St. Peter's Basilica, in addition to burning the ballots, "to make the election of the pope clearer."

But when the bells rang Tuesday around 12:00 PM and black smoke poured from the chimney, people in St. Peter's Square were further confused. It soon became clear that the bells were simply tolling because it was noon.

In past centuries, conclaves were often held in the town where the last pope died, leaving the cardinals to come up with a means of communication on the spot. They sometimes rang bells to signal a successful election.

Smoke was a logical choice because church tradition calls for the cardinals to burn their ballots after each vote to maintain secrecy about the conclave.





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