In 1978 cardinals solved this problem, for the most part, by substituting a small vial of chemicals for the wet or dry straw in order to produce the right color of smoke. Peter's Square for a glimpse of the chimney. In the past, counted ballots went into just one iron stove along with damp wood chips or wet clumps of straw to create black smoke if the vote didn't yield a pope.īut the smoke signal system has been unreliable, triggering nervous cries of "It's white" and emphatic choruses of "No, it's black!" in the various tongues of the faithful and curious who flock to St. The cardinals in 1914 decided that black smoke would signal an inconclusive conclave vote and white smoke would announce the good news of the election of a new pope. The white smoke first appeared in 1914 with the election of Pope Benedict XV when the cardinals set up the white/black smoke color scheme. The tradition to use these signals to announce the election of a new pope stuck on.įurther on, Pope Pius X, elected in 1903 and died in 1914, decided that once the votes had been counted it had to be burned inorder to maintain secrecy and also prevent external forces from interfering in the process. But they had to tell the world it had a new pope so they invented this system of lighting a fire and letting the smoke speak." Michael Society quotes Ambrogio Piazzoni: "They felt they were prisoners of Italy and didn’t want to recognize the violence suffered. With Italy often used as a battleground in history, those trying to unify Italy captured Rome and scaled down the Papal States to what is known as Vatican City today.Īn offended Pope Leo XII, the next pope to be elected after the battle, decided to snub the Italians and gave his papal address inside the Vatican instead of on the balcony of St.
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