The rituals that occur as we wait for white smoke

It’s a ritual as rich in tradition and symbolism as the Catholic Church can muster: secret oaths, hypnotic Gregorian chants, scarlet-decked cardinals filing through the Sistine Chapel — all while the public outside in St Peter’s Square watches for white smoke to learn if it has a new pope.

Much of the ritual’s current incarnation is the work of Archbishop Piero Marini. The Vatican’s master of liturgical celebrations for two decades under Pope John Paul II, Marini organised the funeral rites for the late pontiff and the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.

The conclave begins with the cardinals in their red cassocks filing into the Sistine Chapel, chanting the monophonic Litany of Saints followed by another sacred song, Veni Creator Spiritus, imploring the intervention of the saints and Holy Spirit as they take their places before Michelangelo’s Last Judgment.