Catholic cardinals enter conclave to elect new pope

(CBS NEWS) -- The 115 Catholic cardinals tasked with choosing the ancient Roman church's new leader have isolated themselves in one of the world's most iconic chapels for the first day of the papal conclave -- the ritualistic voting process that will see them elect the next supreme pontiff.

After each man put his hand on a bible to swear an oath in Latin, they took their seats for a final meditation. All non-cardinal electors began streaming out of the ornate chapel after an order in Latin, "extra omnes" was given, translating literally to "out, everybody." Only the electors remained inside. The doors were closed, the conclave was underway. The rest of the process will take place completely in secret.

There is no deadline for the cardinals to elect a new pope -- the process will take as many days as necessary to achieve an absolute majority winner; 77 of the 115 cardinal electors must agree on one man to lead them for the indeterminable future. The world will know that the 266th pope has been elected only when white smoke appears over the Sistine Chapel and a Vatican bell chimes.

Tuesday morning, the so-called "princes of the Catholic Church" began with a pre-conclave Pro Eligendo Pontificate Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican.

Torrential downpours in St. Peter's Square kept the number of faithful and curious low as inside the Basilica, Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, asked his fellow cardinals "to cooperate with the Successor of Peter, the visible foundation of such an ecclesial unity."

Sodano's appeal for unity came 12 days after the first resignation of a pope in almost 600 years, and hinted at the daunting task facing the new Catholic leader: to steer the Church carefully out of an era marked by scandal and allegations of infighting and mismanagement.

Pope Benedict XVI's resignation exacerbated the problems the Church has been attempting to deal with quietly for more than a year. It sparked speculation that the theft and publication of private documents from the pontiff's own desk, which revealed the level of corruption and poor business practice in the Vatican government, might even have catalyzed his decision to step down.

In his wake, the now-Pope Emeritus Benedict left a Church divided, by many accounts, between the Vatican's inner-circle of prelates who dominate its bureaucracy, known as the Curia, and cardinals from outside that circle who feel, perhaps more keenly, pressure from their congregations and the world at large to drag the 2,000 year old institution into the 21st century.

Cardinals from the Americas, Asia and Africa have indicated that it is time for change, throwing around words like "transparency" and "openness" which may make some of their colleagues in the Church who cherish its long-entrenched tradition of secrecy uncomfortable.

The cardinal electors -- by Church rules all cardinals under the age of 80 who are physically able to attend -- have already spent a week discussing amongst themselves the qualities the new pontiff should possess, and whom among them they believe is best suited to the task.

Indications are that the cardinals struggled to agree on the key characteristics a new pontiff should possess. The divide reportedly emerged between cardinals focused on finding a new pope with the oratory gifts and persona to swell the estimated 1.2 billion headcount of Catholics around the world right now, and those who more interested in a man with the temperament and managerial skills to get the Church bureaucracy and finances in order. There is not thought to be one man who possesses all of those qualities in unison, leaving the field of potential pontiffs, or "papabili," wide open.

CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips reports that, oddly, an Italian -- Cardinal Angelo Scola -- has surfaced as the champion of the reformist camp supported by many non-Italian cardinals, those who seem to want to overhaul the way the Church runs itself. Conversely, a Brazilian -- Odilo Scherer -- is a traditionalist and supported by the largely-Italian faction which would prefer to leave the Curia to go about its business more or less as usual.

Neither man, reports Phillips, is thought to have enough votes to achieve the required two-thirds majority in the early balloting, and there are a lot of people who could slip through the middle as votes shift. It's happened before.

"This time around, there are many different candidates, so it's normal that it's going to take longer than the last time," Chile's Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz told The Associated Press, adding an oft-repeated claim that "there are no groups, no compromises, no alliances, just each one with his conscience voting for the person he thinks is best, which is why I don't think it will be over quickly."

Beginning Wednesday morning, the cardinals will hold two rounds of voting, with two ballots each, every day until a single candidate reaches the 77-vote threshold.

Two votes will be held in the morning and if they are inconclusive, another two will be held in the afternoon. All voting ballots will be burned in small ovens in the chapel after each round of voting, producing the smoke which, when black, indicates no pope has been elected and when white, indicates a new pontiff has been chosen.