{"id":76998,"date":"2025-05-07T11:46:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T09:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/?p=76998"},"modified":"2025-05-07T11:46:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T09:46:54","slug":"what-time-are-the-smoke-signals-how-many-are-there-are-chemicals-used-to-determine-if-its-black-or-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/2025\/05\/07\/what-time-are-the-smoke-signals-how-many-are-there-are-chemicals-used-to-determine-if-its-black-or-white\/","title":{"rendered":"What time are the smoke signals? How many are there? Are chemicals used to determine if it\u2019s black or white?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It\u2019s the most anticipated moment for the faithful gathered in St. Peter\u2019s Square\u2014and the only way to know what\u2019s going on inside the conclave.<br><br><strong>Black smoke<\/strong> means the cardinals have not reached an agreement; <strong>white smoke<\/strong> means a new pope has been elected.<br><br><strong>\u00c1LVARO SERRANO<\/strong><br><em>In the past, white smoke was produced using <\/em><strong><em>dry straw<\/em><\/strong><em>, and black smoke was produced with <\/em><strong><em>wet straw<\/em><\/strong><em>. When wet straw was placed in the stove, the smoke turned darker. When dry straw was burned along with the ballots, the smoke came out whiter.<br><br><\/em>However, in the conclaves prior to Pope Francis\u2019 election, there would often be confusion caused by smoke that appeared <strong>gray<\/strong>, leaving the faithful uncertain whether a Pope had been chosen or not. As a result, they had to wait for the <strong>ringing of the Basilica\u2019s bells<\/strong> to be sure.<br><br><strong>\u00c1LVARO SERRANO<\/strong><em><br>Pope <\/em><strong><em>Benedict XVI<\/em><\/strong><em> introduced a change during his pontificate: at the time of voting, a <\/em><strong><em>chemical additive<\/em><\/strong><em> is used\u2014one that makes black smoke truly black and white smoke clearly white. This way, those faithful outside in the square\u2014the extra omnes\u2014can clearly see from the chimney whether we have a new Pope<\/em>.<br><br><strong>The smoke schedule is approximate<\/strong> and depends on how long the cardinals take to vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, on a typical day, there are <strong>four rounds of voting<\/strong>, and the timing is generally as follows:<br><br><strong>Morning session<\/strong>: Cardinals are in the Sistine Chapel from around <strong>10:30 AM to 12:00 PM<\/strong>. If there is a Pope, <strong>white smoke<\/strong> will appear during this time. If not, the process resumes in the afternoon.<br><br><strong>Afternoon session<\/strong>: The second smoke signal of the day usually appears between <strong>5:30 PM and 7:00 PM (Rome time)<\/strong>. This is the last of the day. If there\u2019s no agreement, the same process repeats the next day.<br><br>CA<br>Trans. CRT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Black smoke means the cardinals have not reached an agreement; white smoke means a new pope has been elected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":758,"featured_media":76999,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/cIllf3KpRSI","video_descarga":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bfumateconclaveeng.mp4","international_url":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bfumateconclaveint.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76998"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76998"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77002,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76998\/revisions\/77002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}