Holy Smoke

The church celebrates today the feast of Our Lady of Pompeii, made popular by Blessed Bartolo Longo, who in 1883 was instrumental in building the basilica in honor of Mary in Pompeii. But the world’s attention is going to be on that chimney above the Sistine chapel from now on. Since there will be 4 votings daily, the times when the ballots will be burned are approximately these: after 10:30 AM and after 12 noon in the morning session; and after 5:30 PM and after 7 PM in the evening sessions. However, since there are 133 electors, it may take a little longer than originally anticipated, as was the case last night. The black smoke appeared at 9 PM local time, 2 hours later than expected. So let’s just be patient. For a Pope to be elected he has to receive 89 votes, or two-thirds of the 133 total votes, corresponding to each cardinal present. In the homily before the conclave started yesterday, Cardinal Battista Re said something worth repeating: “We pray that God will give us a Pope according to the heart of God for the good of the church and humanity. May we receive a Pope who can awaken the consciences of everyone, and awaken the spiritual and moral energies in the modern society characterized by the great technological advances but tends to forget about God.” An interesting thought crossed my mind this morning. We read that Zachariah, whose wife Elizabeth gave birth to John the Baptist, 2000 years ago could only inform his relatives by creating a bon-fire, and the smoke would let the relatives know that the baby was born. And in this day and age, with cell-phones in every person’s pocket, with email, Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook, X and Meta and Instagram and so much more, we still have to look at a chimney and wait for the white smoke to learn that a Pope has been elected. In the meantime we wait and pray.