World

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Visitors wait for the chimney smoke in St. Peter's Square during the second day of the conclave to elect a new pope, at the Vatican, Wednesday, March 13, 2013. Black smoke again billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday, meaning that Catholic cardinals hadn't elected a pope on their second or third rounds of balloting. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Cardinals remained divided over who should be pope on Wednesday after three rounds of voting, an indication that disagreements remain about the direction of the Catholic Church following the upheaval unleashed by Pope Benedict XVI's surprise resignation.

In the second day of the conclave, thick black smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, prompting sighs of disappointment from the thousands of people gathered in a rain-soaked and chilly St. Peter's Square.

"I'm not happy to see black smoke. We all want white," said the Rev. ThankGod Okoroafor, a Nigerian priest studying theology at Holy Cross University in Rome. "But maybe it means that the cardinals need to take time, not to make a mistake in the choice."

The Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi insisted that the continued balloting was part of the natural course of the election and didn't signal divisions among cardinals. He noted that only once in the past century had a pope been elected on the third ballot: Pope Pius XII, elected on the eve of World War II.

"This is very normal," he said. "It's not a sign of particular divisions within the college, but rather of a normal process of discernment."

A winner must receive 77 votes, or two-thirds of the 115, to be named pope.