in just a little while, the cardinal from france, who s actually a will be leading tonight. his name is john louis theron. he ll come to the curtain and he ll announce we have a pope and he ll introduce who the pope is and read the pope s first name in latin and from that we ll be able to figure out who the pope is. robert moynihan is with us, he s the founder of inside the vatican.com. sir, it s the moment that catholics have been waiting since we learned of the resignation of pope benedict xvi. the front runner, it was our understanding, would be the cardinal from milan. angelo scola has been considered the front runner, shep, we don t know. he was considered the front runner? that s right. if he comes out, it won t be a big surprise.
with he ll get caught up then on the responsibilities of his new job, which will include the installation mass, which could happen as early as later this week, or perhaps at the beginning of next. wow, a lot to be done tonight. we soon will find out who the pope is, is it cardinal scola from milan, a man seen as a reformer, or cardinal scherer from brazil, a man seen more of an insider, but certainly a favorite here or one of the other 113, megyn, i think we re probably 15 minutes away from knowing. megyn: the anticipation is building everywhere as we wait to hear the name. now we know someone has been chosen and wait to find out who. shepard back in a moment. we want to talk to tom peterson, founder of catholics come home as we watch the crowds continue to cheer and at seems it s a deafening roar coming from st. peter s square and has not let up, i should point out from the moment we
loved him right away. megyn: and that was the first time in how many hundreds of years they d gone with a non-italian. i believe almost 600 years. megyn: that s the first time and then a german pope with then cardinal ratzinger and now we don t know. they could be going back to italian if it is scola or perhaps somebody from latin america, we re not sure yet. well, as we said, these mysteries are intended to be mysterious. i don t think it s any mystery the at all the italians would like to claim the papacy back. they had him for so many years and a little like the america s cup, they figure it belongs to them and they want to get it back. megyn: if it s scola, we don t know. look at the smile, the beautiful woman. it s genuine, the smiles are genuine. megyn: and people are bringing children out, why wouldn t they, to witness history. the same reason you bring your child to an inauguration of a president, it s history in the making and this is going to be our 266th pope a
the cardinals are now thinking about plan b. that s entirely possible. the thinking going into all of this, again, this is from all our people who work here year in and year out, that the thinking was that cardinal scola of milan might have been the leading candidate to become the pope and the thinking about the way these things worked in the past is they get together, the folks who want to vote for them. and the hope is they ll get to the 77 necessary to make him pope. but as it turned out, the 71-year-old, who was created cardinal by john f. kennedy pope john paul. they haven t had any communications with us since yesterday they closed the doors. so nobody really has any idea. it s possible that they don t get a pope today or tomorrow, that they could go in a completely different direction. brian: what about an american? yeah. possibility of two americans.
steve: once again, folks, to recap, you re looking at the picture of the black smoke moments ago from the chimney above the sistine chapel. they have had two rounds. they voted three different times as shepherd accurately told us. still no pope. shepherd, you were talking about how the conventional wisdom was that people were voting essentially on cardinal scola from milan. he s a reformer. he didn t get the 77 the supposition is. he didn t get the threshold of 77 votes. so now rather than getting more votes for him, your people are telling you maybe we re looking for another guy? it s not if not scola, the next reformer on the list of those who we think might be up there? maybe the cardinal from canada? i don t see him as a