screens that had the sistine chapel chimney upon it, waiting to see if there by gray smoke or white smoke or no smoke. we figured we d see gray smoke tonight after a day of incredible pageantry with the cardinals first having a mass for the election of the pontiff in st. peter s basilica this morning, and then the beautiful scenes of them making their way to the sistine chapel where they will continue to cast votes until a pope is chosen. the speculation continues with italian newspapers and the bookies still putting angelo scola, the the archbishop of milan in the poll position. the canadianary. bishop and a couple americans being talked about as
the new pope to wear, as soon as he is elected, in sizes small, medium and large. american cardinal, timothy dolan and his daily radio message yesterday said that he was anxious to get started after days of meetings. it was remarkably enriching and uplifting, but i m kind of happy they re over, because we came here to elect a pope. joining me live from the afghanistan are msnbc s chris jansi jansing, elizabeth lev, and father mark heydo, international director for the vatican museums. chris, i want to start with you. there appears to be this divide among the cardinalsov s over th direction of the church, as we look at the way the american press is talking about this. this l.a. times says the electors have appeared to have split in two different groups and are backing angelo scola and cardinal who is work at the vatican are backing the brazilcan cardinal, odilo scherer. what are you hearing from people
people who are new, because these circumstances are so historic, i don t think anybody really can tell you what s going to happen inside the walls of the sistine chapel, thomas. certainly, the names that keep popping up, from the american side. cardinal timothy dolan, cardinal scola, marc ouellet, and as chris mentioned, odilo scherer of brazils. what does it mean that we are in historic times for the fact that we have a pope emeritus, and that we have not been in a period of mourning leading up to this election and the fact, as chris pointed out, that these certain cardinals, more than half of which were appointed by pope benedict, have had the opportunity to get to know each other over the last week. i think it makes this a really exciting time. it s very happy, because we don t have that sort of heaviness of saying good-bye to one pope, in the sense we ve
on behalf of the vatan, they will tell you there s no politicking. that flies in the face of reality, because there is, and jockeying for two different positions, how to go former. aside from which reformer is at the top of the list and is it possible for that map to becomes pope? we right now, as people have been saying, common wisdom. i m not bringing up anything new. there are two or three candidates trying to get a consensus, and looks like we have the first sign unless we have an election tomorrow we ll have a little bit longer conclave. if one of those two candidates, the man who would be close to pope benedict is cardinal scola of milan. then sharer would be in of sao paulo brazil, german origin, who is a very nice and good man but real in a sense a creature
take that first ballot. thomas? and anne, what are we hearing? because back here at home, certainly, the media has been talking about cardinal o malley and cardinal dolan potentially being in the running, but they ve also been getting some favorable press overseas. they really have. and especially the italians seem to be really fond of cardinal sean o malley of boston. they like the fact that he is a monk. that he wears robes and sandals. they like his humble presence, and they seem to think that might be a good option for the next pope. let me talk about some other people who are getting a lot of play here. the italian newspapers speculate that the person going into the conclave with the most votes is cardinal scola, who is the archbishop of milan. but they say that he is far short of the 77 votes needed the to become the next pope. other people being talked about, cardinal scherra, who is the archbishop of sao paulo, the largest catholic diocese in the world. mark ouellet, the fo