On Thursday, the chimney above the Sistine Church rolled in, and thick white smoke signaled the world that the Roman Catholic Church had a new pope.

The smoke blew up with applause among the thousands of pilgrims and tourists waiting for St. Peter's Square. This means that one of the 133 cardinals in the church received a necessary two-thirds majority to win the meeting, a secret century-old ceremony to elect the new pope.

At the end of further confirmation, the bell of St. Peter's Basilica rang. The day after the fourth vote, the Pope chose the second day of the vote, although his identity has not been announced immediately. When Jorge Bergoglio, who became Pope Francis, was elected in March 2013, his identity was revealed 45 minutes after White Smoke appeared on the balcony above St. Peter's Square.

Francis died in April at the age of 88. His successor was quickly selected, especially given the large number of cardinals attended the meeting. The vast majority of people were chosen by the Argentines, who put his website around the world.

Some say this may indicate that the new pope is someone who will embrace his own point of view and continue his work. However, there is no guarantee, especially given that many new cardinals represent states with conservative social attitudes, inconsistent with Francis’s papal style, which was formed around the accepted message, challenging centuries of church teaching.

Francis was angry at the conservative cardinal with compassion for immigrants and refugees, openness to LGBTQ+ Catholics, and demands for climate crisis action.

Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin was among the leaders before the meeting began; Philippine reformer Luis Antonio Tagle; Péter Erdő, a traditionalist from Hungary; and Robert Sarah, a cardinal in Guinea, a pope who criticized Francis. and moderate American Cardinal Robert Prevost.

But, as the ancient pope election says: “The person who takes the Pope as the Pope, uses it as the Cardinal, because few of those who were the leader at the beginning were able to pass a row of votes. Francis himself is a key example of this process, and Francis himself was not among the leader in 2013.

In one of the two daily convening meetings, the Cardinal agreed that the new pope needed to “become a bridge and guide, to become a disoriented human being marked by the crisis of the world order.”

Various issues related to the church were discussed during the meeting, including evangelism, Vatican finance, documentary sexual abuse, global conflict and services to the poor and immigrants.

The top priority of the new pope is to strengthen the unity of the church in the context of different perspectives and expectations within the institutions and the growing polarization in the wider world. Some observers believe that after 20 years on either end of the spectrum, there is a real risk of division: the traditional/conservative Benedict XVI and the free/progressive Francis.

The key area of ​​unity and recovery will be the American Catholic Church, with Pope Francis being a split figure. Some American bishops are avid supporters of Donald Trump, while others are frustrated by the president's policies and statements. Early access to the new pope's agenda may be high.

The Pope plays an important role in the international stage, especially to ensure that religion does not become a line of failure. He will face ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East and Sudan, as well as politically divided immigration issues, climate crisis, religious freedom and human rights.

The legacy of sexual abuse has created a long shadow on Francis' pope. He slowly grasped the scale and systemicity of the problem, not at first understanding the pain and anger of the survivors. This pain did not disappear, and the new pope's method inevitably came under severe scrutiny.