White or black smoke? I couldn't tell when Francis was elected

When the Catholic Church looks to chart its future, it pulls out ancient tools in its wheelhouse.

So even in this digital age, it proudly relies on paper ballots and different shades of smoke in picking and announcing its new leader.

And people are there for it. There's intrigue in the rituals so far removed from 24/7 news cycles and often polarizing political elections.

When the world's Catholic leaders meet behind closed doors in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel starting Wednesday (May 7), they will not give speeches, take part in polls or see their tallied results on a screen.

Instead, they'll write their votes on pieces of paper. Their ballots will be burned in a way that sends smoke that's either black (inconclusive vote) or white (someone has been elected). And while they're contemplating their decisions, the dramatic frescoes of Michelangelo — including one of the Last Judgment on the wall behind the altar — will be staring down at them.

And the faithful and simply curious will be waiting to hear who these church leaders picked to lead the church's 1.4 billion Catholics. 

Those in St. Peter's Square are the first to get the news that the election was a success — securing a two-thirds majority — and they will be the first to meet the new pope when he appears on the basilica's balcony. 

The square, with its fountains and an obelisk in front of St. Peter's Basilica, is almost a huge parish gathering spot. Its shape is more elliptical than square, wrapped on the perimeter by Bernini's colonnades as arms drawing people to the magnificent 16th century church.

This grey cobblestoned setting is where the church has long celebrated large-scale Masses for Christmas, Easter, sainthood canonizations, papal inaugurations and funerals.

It's where I was on a rainy evening 12 years ago, working for the now-closed Washington bureau of Catholic News Service with our colleagues in the Rome office. Earlier that day, I had been interviewing cardinals over 80, too old to vote but still in town awaiting the decision their brother cardinals came up with.

In the square that night, I was working old-school with my reporter’s notebook and pen, asking people who spoke English what they thought about the conclave process and what type of leader they hoped the cardinals would choose.

In the intermittent rain, my pen stopped working and oddly I was without a back-up. I pleaded in English — and through some pantomining — with an older Italian woman about needing a pen and she graciously figured out what I was asking for and gave me one.