Vatican's 'Room of Tears' ready for next Pope

Vatican's 'Room of Tears' ready for next Pope: Just a few metres away from the Sistine Chapel the newly elected Pope will wear his Papal white vestment for the first time. Watch as final preparations are being made at the Vatican.

Puffs of White Smoke ~ 2:09 p.m.

"And when the choice is made, the camerlengo asks the candidate:  "Do you accept?"  A heavy question that can turn ambition into anguish.  Some men must have wanted to refuse.  But when a candidate answers, "I accept," in that instant of assent he becomes the successor to the See of St. Peter.
The pope-elect is then escorted to an adjoining room.  There he finds white papal cassocks in three sizes.  He chooses one, changes from the colorful garb of a cardinal ~ and spends some moments alone.  What is it like, this historic room?
...down the dark hall behind the Sistine altar...enter a small room of irregular shape, built long ago, perhaps for storage, certainly not for ceremony.
"The name of the room says everything:  the Room of Tears."
"Once the new pontiff is dressed, it is time to burn the ballots and send the puffs of white smoke up the chimney ~ the signal of resolution to the expectant crowds in St. Peter's Square.  The camerlengo then appears on a balcony and shouts "Habemus papam!  We have a pope!"

~ Bart McDowell, Inside the Vatican

"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature.  It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.  The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows."  ~ Henry D. Thoreau, Walden.

Exerpt from Inside the Vatican*

"Through the centuries, the form of pontifical elections has varied.  Temporal rulers ~ even mobs ~ have tried to influence the selection;  sometimes they have succeeded.  But no longer.  The isolated cardinals now elect a pope by one of three procedures:  by inspiration (acclamation), by compromise (negotiation), or by scrutiny (secret balloting requiring a two-thirds majority).  Scrutiny has been by far the most common recent method.  In centuries gone by, the deliberations have included not only persuasion, but also threats and even bribery.  But always, always prayer.

The saying is simple:  "Cardinals have elected, but God has chosen."

Source:  Inside the Vatican, Bart McDowell, National Geographic Society, The Book Division, 1991.