Friday, April 1, 2005 at 1:36 AM The smokestack is generally to indicate that the college (as opposed to junior college) of cardinals is deliberating whom to choose as the next pope. 2/3rds of the cardinals have to agree and once the final vote is taken, the anonymous ballots the cardinals use to write their vote on are cast into the fire, thus making the smoke from the smokestack change color. They cast them into the fire to symbolize a kind of "burying the hatchet" of candidates and unity of all the cardinals recognizing the next pope. —Ganthet |
