New voting fails to produce a pope

Mar 13 2013

Black smoke has billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, meaning cardinals have not elected a pope in their second or third rounds of balloting.

Cardinals voted twice on Wednesday in Michelangelo's famed frescoed chapel after a first vote on Tuesday in a conclave to elect a successor to Benedict XVI, who stunned the Catholic world last month by becoming the first pope in 600 years to resign.

His decision threw the church into turmoil and exposed deep divisions among cardinals tasked with finding a manager to clean up a corrupt Vatican bureaucracy as well as a pastor who can revive Catholicism in a time of growing secularism.

Thousands braved a chilly rain morning to watch the 6-foot copper chimney on the chapel roof for the smoke signals telling them whether a new pope has been elected.