UPDATE: The new Pope is Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina. He is the first Latin American pontiff. Bergoglio will now be known as Pope Francis.
Ladies and gentleman of the world, there is a new Pope. Actually, there is white smoke rising from the Vatican, which indicates that a new leader of the Roman Catholic church has been selected.
The white smoke is rising from a chimney above the Sistine Chapel. The thousands of people waiting in St. Peter’s Square are celebrating knowing that the successor to Pope Benedict XVI, who at 85-year-old was the first Pope to resign in over 600 hundreds years, has finally been selected. Usually about a half hour to an hour after the white smoke is seen, the new Pope will step out onto a balcony that overlooks St. Peter’s Square.
One hundred and fifteen cardinals in the Catholic faith gathered in Rome yesterday for the first day of the conclave. Seventy-seven votes are necessary to confirm a new pontiff, who will be the spiritual leader of the reportedly 1.2 billion Catholics around the world. It took two days and five ballots for a cardinal to reach the sufficient number of votes to be chosen.
This story is developing.
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Photo: CNN
