Faithful are like ‘orphans’ without papal blessing

The Catholic Church marked its first Sunday in nearly eight years without a papal blessing yesterday, as cardinals gathered to elect a leader of the 1.2bn-member faith in one of the most troubled periods of its history.

The windows of the papal apartments overlooking St Peter’s Square were shut, which is normally the case only when a pope is outside Rome and delivers the Sunday blessing elsewhere.

There was no papal blessing of any kind, the first time the Church has been in such a state of limbo since Sunday, Apr 3, 2005, the day after Pope John Paul II died.