Jorge Bergoglio, the 76-year-old archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, has been elected as pope. He is the first Latin American to lead the Catholic Church. Bergoglio, who has taken the name Francis I, is also the first Jesuit priest to become pope.
Tuesday evening, a plume of black smoke rose out of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, signifying that the first round of balloting to elect a new pope had passed without any nominee receiving the necessary two-thirds majority.
For the first time in nearly 600 years, the head of the Catholic Church is resigning. Pope Benedict XVI announced the decision in Latin in Rome early Monday morning.
Just as he finished a sermon on Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI symbolically released two doves into the air as a call for peace. But soon after the birds took flight, an aggressive seagull began dive bombing one of them. Uh oh. We're generally not superstitious, but we sure hope this isn't a sign of bad things to come.