Today in the afternoon the first session of the Conclave of Cardinals will begin, which will elect the new head of the Roman Catholic Church. \nThe elections must involve 115 cardinals who are not yet 80 years old. There are currently 117 such cardinals in the College of Cardinals, but two - Mexican Adolfo Antonio Suárez Rivera and Archbishop of Manila, Filipino Jaime Lachica Sin - have warned that due to health reasons they will not be able to come. \nThe elections will take place behind the closed doors of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, painted with Michelangelo's famous frescoes "The Creation of the World" and "The Last Judgment." \nThe results of all rounds of voting - and the new Pontiff needs the support of at least two-thirds of the Conclave participants - in principle, must remain secret forever under seven seals. Ballots and other documents related to the voting will be burned immediately every day. \nAlthough journalists usually quickly find out who voted, how, and for whom. \nIt is especially difficult to keep anything secret now, when the cardinals will live not directly in the Sistine Chapel, as they once did (in the Middle Ages the doors to the chapel were even walled up with brickwork for certainty), but in a new building specially constructed for such cases on the territory of the Vatican - the cardinal hotel "Domus Sanctae Marthae." Accordingly, quite a lot of service personnel will be involved around them. \nTherefore, along with the cardinals last Friday, security guards and all those who will serve those in session gave a "non-disclosure pledge" under threat of excommunication from the church. \nAlso on Friday, a special chimney was installed on the roof of the Sistine Chapel. After the end of each round of voting - there will be two per day - black smoke will come from the pipe, announcing that the Pope has not been elected. As soon as the election takes place, white smoke will appear. And so that no one has any doubt about the color, the final vote will be accompanied - and this is also an innovation - by the bells of all Roman churches. \nOn Monday morning, before the start of the Conclave, a special mass will precede it, during which the help of the Almighty will be sought in electing the new pontiff. These masses will be served daily in all Roman cathedrals until the name of the new Pope is announced. \nHow much time the election of the next "vicar of God on earth" will take is, in principle, unpredictable: there have been cases when the procedure dragged on for several years. True, the overwhelming majority of Vaticanists believe that this time everything will end already on the very next day: the Vatican needs to demonstrate to "the city and the world" that after the death of John Paul II the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church maintains unity and accord, including in the election of its new head. \nIn any case, the central balcony on the facade of St. Peter's Basilica, facing St. Peter's Square, has already been decorated with a purple canopy. It is from there that the traditional formula "Habemus Papam!" will be proclaimed in Latin, and it is from there that the new Pontiff may, as John Paul II once did, immediately after his election address his flock. \n