Behind closed doors in the chapel, they will hold as many rounds of voting as prove necessary to select the 267th leader of the world's 1.4 billion ... five ballots held over two days.

CATHOLICS FROM ALL over the world ... see black or white smoke. The same goes for the afternoon voting – if there is a two-thirds consensus after the first round of balloting in the afternoon ...

Voting cardinals, tasked with electing a new pope, will be deprived from communicating with the outside world until the conclave concludes. Outside the conclave, people can only see the smoke ...

In 2013, Pope Francis was introduced a little over an hour after white smoke plumed ... Francis appeared on the Sistine Chapel balcony, greeting the world as pope for the first time.

Catholics around the world were skeptical at first about an American pope. But Pope Leo XIV’s multicultural and multilingual identity has put them at ease. By Patricia Mazzei Reporting from Rome ...