straw or some chemicals over there that will make the smoke come up black. otherwise, they will let it burn freely or maybe even add some chemicals that kick a little bit of white smoke into it, so the world knows if a new pope has been chosen. anderson? tom, thanks very much. of course, all eyes are going to be on that smokestack late tomorrow afternoon. that s when the first vote actually takes place. and there is often some confusion as to whether the smoke is white or black. it s a little hard to tell. they re actually going to ring the bells of st. peter s when a pope has been elected to verify, in fact, that it is white smoke. more now on the candidates and how very, very delicately, very gingerly, they may be trying to influence the outcome. there are, of course, no campaign rallies, however, there is campaigning of a sort. my colleague, chris cuomo, discovered while spending time with a leading american cardinal. chris and i spoke a short time ago. you spent part of yesterday
stoves which have been installed in the back of the sistine chapel. that one over there is pretty much just a regular stove that s kept burning all the time. this is the one where the ballots go, and when they put them in, that s the only communication they have with the outside world, because if they have not selected a pope, when they throw the ballots inside, they will put some wet straw or chemicals over there that will make the smoke come up black. otherwise, they will let it burn freely or maybe even add some chemicals that kick a little bit of white smoke into it so the world knows if a new pope has been chosen. anderson? tom, thanks very much. all eyes are going to be on that smokestack late tomorrow afternoon. that s when the first vote actually takes place and there is often confusion whether the smoke is white or black. it s a little hard to tell. we are actually going to ring the bells of st. peter s when a pope has been elected to verify, in fact, it is white smoke. more
president of the united states, to senate democrats, to come together to fix these problems. and could the next pope come from the one continent where the church is expanding? we ll take you to the small village in ghana, getting a lot of attention lately. good day, i m yaund mitchell live in washington, the quest for a new pope is officially under way. for now i m told there s a decision. the spotlight will be on the smokestack, 115 voting cardinals are inside the sistine chapel. joining me from the vatican, msnbc s chris jansing and fare john bartunik. chris, let s talk about what we re watching for, not just the white spoke. but what we re expecting, because we don t expect a rapid decision certainly. but they are in deliberations and could presumably have their
first vote. probably breathing a sigh much relief. because the waiting period got to be a bit much for some of them. we heard cardinal dolan talking about now he s ready to get in there and start getting the voting under way. there s a little procedural stuff that has to go on, but they could start voting very quickly and we could start seeing the smoke within an hour. it s such an interesting process, they re going to select randomly three people they call them scrutiners, each of the cardinals will try disguise his handwriting when they vote for who they want to they fold the paper lengthwise and bring them up to the altar. the two scrutiners look at the ballots and the third one announces them and they have the count and the smokestack. there s a big crowd out in st. peter s square. even though the betting money is that there will not be a new
shepard: live in rome on continuing vatican chimney watch. if you don t want to keep an eye on the chimney 24/7 there is more modern way to figure out when we have a pope. pope alarm.com. the web site that will send you email or text message when the cardinals make their choice. the fellowship of catholic university students came up with the idea. they say more than 35,000 people have already signed up for the aletters when the web site puts it when the smoke goes up, you will know what s going down. meantime even that chimney has a twitter account. somebody last month launched a joke account for the world s most watched smokestack after pope emeritus benedict the xvith announced his resignation and since then the count for the sistene chimney has posted several tweets. including this one earlier today. cough cough, all this black smoke is making me sick. updating our top story tonight. just hours from now the century s old tradition of picking a new pope.