Vatican City

VATICAN CITY - Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina became the first pope from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium in an election that recognized a shift in the Roman Catholic Church's center of gravity while maintaining its conservative theology. The new Pope Francis, the 266th in the church's history, is immediately confronted with daunting challenges. His flock is growing rapidly in some parts of the globe but is disenchanted and shrinking elsewhere.

The 115 Roman Catholic cardinals charged with selecting a new pope to lead the world's 1.2 billion Catholics cast their first votes Tuesday and continued their secret deliberations, signaling with black smoke from the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City that they were not finished. The voting will continue until a candidate receives a two-thirds majority among the cardinal electors. At that time, the selection of a new pope will be announced to the public with white smoke from the Sistine Chapel and the ringing of the bells of St. Peter's Basilica.

VATICAN CITY -- Looking solemn at the task before them, senior prelates of the Roman Catholic Church filed into the Sistine Chapel and locked themselves in Tuesday afternoon to begin the process of voting for a new pope under conditions of utmost secrecy. The 115 cardinals swore oaths on the Bible to keep their proceedings confidential and are now allowed to communicate with the outside world only through smoke signals, from a chimney on the chapel roof, to signify the outcome of the balloting.

VATICAN CITY - Eight years ago, many of the men with red caps and red cloaks who walked into the Sistine Chapel to choose a pope seemed to be in a state of grief-shaped numbness. The only pope most had known for their professional lives as cardinals had died. The funeral had been an ornate, somber affair, replete with the evocation of the saints and the attendance of heads of state from the world over, not to mention millions of pilgrims. The cardinals were eager for guidance.

VATICAN CITY - The gathering of Roman Catholic cardinals to pick a new pope began Tuesday with an oath of secrecy and an inaugural vote that produced no quick winner but gave the prelates their first look at which candidates are garnering the most support. Black smoke billowed from the chimney atop the Vatican's Sistine Chapel on Tuesday evening less than 2 1/2 hours after the doors were shut to outsiders and the cardinals within prepared to cast ballots for the next leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

VATICAN CITY -- As possible front-runners emerged ahead of a conclave to elect the next pope, Roman Catholic cardinals Monday wrapped up a week of discussion on issues facing the church, with some pushing unsuccessfully to extend their talks before the start of balloting. In their last scheduled pre-conclave gathering on Monday morning, 28 cardinals addressed their colleagues, more than in any of the other sessions of the so-called general congregations. Over 150 speeches have been made since the meetings started last Monday.

VATICAN CITY - Roman Catholic cardinals gathering here to elect the next pope have focused with unusual intensity on the management of the Vatican, which by almost all accounts is deeply dysfunctional - and at worst may have permitted criminal behavior. The cardinals' assessment of the inner workings of the Vatican could figure prominently in whom they choose to replace Pope Benedict XVI, church officials and analysts say. The debate also goes a long way in explaining why it took so long to convene the conclave, the secretive meeting inside the Sistine Chapel where 115 cardinals will vote for pope.

VATICAN CITY - The timing said it all. A smiling Pope Benedict XVI had just wrapped up an official visit to Portugal in May 2010, during which he praised Catholic organizations striving to protect families based on "the indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman. " But barely 72 hours after the pontiff flew home, the president of Portugal declared that he would sign a bill allowing gay and lesbian couples to wed. With Spain having granted such rights five years earlier, the move turned the entire Iberian Peninsula, historically a Catholic stronghold, into an unlikely hitching post for homosexuals.

VATICAN CITY - With the terrifying grandeur of Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" looming over them, senior leaders of the Roman Catholic Church will begin casting their ballots inside the Sistine Chapel on Tuesday to elect a successor to Benedict XVI, the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years. No one campaigns for the papacy, at least overtly; the surest way for a candidate to disqualify himself for the job is to let it be known that he wants it. But various names crop up repeatedly in discreet conversations as the 115 prelates eligible to vote try to figure out who among them is best placed to lead a historic but troubled institution that claims the allegiance of 1.2 billion people.

VATICAN CITY -- Nearly a month after Pope Benedict XVI announced his surprise decision to retire, Roman Catholic cardinals on Friday said they will begin voting to choose his replacement on Tuesday. That means 115 cardinals who were under the age of 80 when Benedict stepped down on Feb. 28 will file into the Sistine Chapel and under solemn vows of secrecy decide who among them will be the next pope. They and another 38 cardinals over 80 have spent most of the last week here debating the momentous troubles facing the church and discussing which traits are most important in the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.