Sixteen days after the reign of Pope Francis ended with his death on Easter Monday, the Catholic Church is looking to the future. The papal conclave is set to begin Wednesday afternoon in Rome, with 133 cardinal electors tasked with choosing Francis' successor.
The question now turns to which man — and it will be a man, as women cannot be ordained priests in the Catholic Church — will step onto the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in the papal regalia to greet the crowds massed in the square at the heart of Vatican City.
Below is a look inside the conclave process, with a step-by-step breakdown of how the next pope will be chosen and anointed under Michelangelo's iconic fresco on the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel.
What is the papal conclave?The papal conclave is the closely guarded gathering of the cardinal electors — serving cardinals under the age of 80 — to elect the next pope.
The exact number varies, but of the 135 cardinals eligible to serve as electors right now, the Vatican has said 133 will gather from around the world to choose the successor to Francis.
Of the current cardinal electors, a large majority — 108 — were appointed by Pope Francis during his 12-year papacy. They come from 71 different countries, including 10 from the United States.
A map shows the number of eligible cardinal electors from various regions who could vote in the papal conclave to pick a successor to Pope Francis.
CBS News
When will the papal conclave begin?The Vatican set the conclave start date as Wednesday, May 7.
Under church rules, it must start 15 to 20 days after a pope's death; Francis died on April 21.
Ahead of the conclave, Vatican officials and employees who will help support the process, including other clergy, security personnel, drivers, cleaning crews, doctors and nurses, took an oath of secrecy on Tuesday.
How does the papal conclave work?How this assembly proceeds to choose the next pope is a process that dates back hundreds of years — an intricate, choreographed series of rituals and votes.
On the first day of the papal conclave, the cardinal electors will shut themselves off from the outside world and begin the momentous task of choosing — likely from among their own ranks — the man who will become the 267th Bishop of Rome, better known as the pope.
On Day One, the cardinals celebrated a morning Mass in St. Peter's Basilica. In the afternoon, they will walk in a solemn procession into the Sistine Chapel, which will have undergone a thorough security sweep to check for any illicit recording devices before their arrival.
For centuries, the cardinal electors were physically locked inside the Sistine Chapel until they elected a new pontiff, left to eat and sleep beneath Michelangelo's vivid Renaissance masterpiece. These days, they do leave to rest and share meals at the Santa Marta House — a hotel-like residence inside Vatican City where Francis had his own personal apartment during his pontificate — for however many days it takes them to come to a decision.
Once the cardinals have filed into the chapel on Wednesday, and any subsequent days required, its great bronze doors are dramatically closed and sealed, and the day's voting begins.
Cardinals attend the conclave for the election of a new pope in the Sistine Chapel on March 12, 2013. The following day, their choice was made: Pope Francis.
L'Ossservatore Romano/Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images
How does the voting for a new pope work?The cardinals have already spent days discussing the merits of the various papal prospects during formal "general congregations" and other meetings at the Vatican, but on Wednesday afternoon, the voting will very likely begin. Choosing the new pope requires not just a majority, but a two-thirds plus-one vote by the cardinal electors for a single candidate to win. Pope Benedict XVI, who led the church prior to Francis, raised that threshold and enshrined the two-thirds requirement into church law two days before he stepped down.
Each cardinal must swear an oath of absolute secrecy as the conclave begins. If they, or any other church official, disclose any information from within the conclave, they will be excommunicated by the church.
To vote, each cardinal writes their chosen candidate's name on a ballot, disguising his handwriting, then walks to an altar at the front of the chapel and deposits the paper onto a ceremonial plate. He then tips the ballot from the plate into a chalice-urn.
As they are counted and the handwritten entries recorded by three cardinals at the altar, known as scrutineers, the ballots are deposited into another urn.
A third urn, made of gilded bronze and silver and adorned with Christian imagery, is used to ferry ballots from any cardinals too ill to leave their sleeping quarters to the chapel for counting.
After the first vote is held on the first afternoon, the cardinals' ballots are placed into one of two small ovens inside the Sistine Chapel and burned. A plume of smoke flows up a chimney and into the air over St. Peter's Square, watched for eagerly by the faithful, and the world's media.
If that round of voting yields no winner, the smoke will be black — a sign to the world that the Holy See remains vacant.
How long can a conclave last?The voting process will repeat itself the following day, with the cardinals holding two ballots in the morning and two in the afternoon. If the morning sessions are inconclusive, black smoke will be seen again around lunchtime in Rome — early morning on the U.S. East Coast.
If there's still no winner following the afternoon votes, more black smoke will stream into the early evening Roman sky.
If there's no two-thirds majority after three days, voting is paused for a day to allow time for prayer, discussion and a "brief spiritual exhortation" by the senior cardinal in the Order of Deacons.
Then the voting process resumes. A conclave will last until enough of the cardinal electors agree on a man to serve as the next pope.
How long has it taken to choose a new pope in the past?The longest conclave in history was the one that brought Pope Gregory X to the papacy in 1281. It lasted almost three years from the time the cardinals first began their voting.
Recent conclaves, however, have lasted just days. Pope John Paul II needed eight ballots, over two days, to become the pontiff in 1978. His successor, Benedict XVI, was chosen on the fourth ballot, after two days, in 2005.
Francis, in 2013, needed a mere five ballots, with the voting taking just 24 hours.
What will happen once the conclave chooses the next pope?When enough cardinals agree on a candidate and the vote reaches the two-thirds-plus-one threshold, the chosen man is asked if he accepts the role. He will acknowledge by simply saying the word for "I accept" in Latin: "Accepto."
At that point, he becomes the new pope and he will state his chosen pontifical name before the assembled cardinals. The most common papal name has been John, used 21 times. Others, including Simplicius, Hilarius and Zosimus, have only ever been used once. Pope Francis was also the first to choose his papal name.
The ballots are then burned in the stove, but this time, a chemical additive is left out to create the much-anticipated plume of "fumata bianca," white smoke.
There was confusion during some past conclaves over the color of the smoke rising over the chapel, so two conclaves ago, in 2005, a new tradition began. In addition to the white smoke, bells now chime, heralding the news that the Roman Catholic Church has a new leader.
The new pope then immediately goes into a chamber adjoining the Sistine Chapel to be clad in the papal robes.
As the faithful and the curious crowd into St. Peter's Square below, the cardinal deacon steps out onto the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica to introduce the new pontiff with the famous phrase, "Habemus papam" — We have a pope.
Finally, the new leader of the Catholic Church emerges into the spotlight to deliver his first blessing.
Newly elected Pope Francis appears on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica on March 13, 2013 in Vatican City.
Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis via Getty Images
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Frank Andrews