How the black and white smoke is actually made

Some fascinating (for geeks) facts from the Vatican News Service:

Beginning with the Conclave in 2005, in order to better distinguish the colour of the “fumate” (smoke signalling the election or non-election of a pontiff), a secondary apparatus is used to generate the smoke in addition to the traditional stove in which the Cardinal electors' ballots are burned. This device stands next to the ballot-burning stove and has a compartment where, according to the results of the vote, different coloured-smoke generating compounds can be mixed. The result is requested by means of an electronic control panel and lasts for several minutes while the ballots are burning in the other stove.


For a black “fumata” the chemical compound is made of potassium perchlorate, anthracene, and sulphur. The white “fumata” is a mixture of potassium chlorate, lactose, and rosin. The rosin is a natural amber resin obtained from conifers. Prior to 2005 the black smoke was obtained by using smoke black or pitch and the white smoke by using wet straw.

The stove-pipes of the stove and the smoke-producing device join up and exit the roof of the Sistine Chapel as one pipe leading to the chimney installed on the ridge of the roof, which is visible from St. Peter's Square. To improve the airflow the pipe is pre-heated by electrical resistance and it also has a backup fan.

36th daily sayings of light and love (St John of the Cross)

One human thought alone is worth more than the entire world, hence God alone is worthy of it.

Tony Flannery, in the lamplight

What do you do if you're Tony Flannery and you're missing the press adulation you've been craving for months?  Why you lash out, misdirect and create an impossible task for the future Pope.  Still searching for those keys under the streetlight.

Flannery has an article in the Irish Times (don't you just hate the new website?  Try reading the letters page now - impossible) in which he claims the first task facing the new Pope must be to investigate the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Marcial Maciel Degollado.

Now we all know this guy was a bad piece of work, including stories that he was possessed by the Devil and refused the last rites.  But he's dead.  And before he died we know Ratzinger pretty much decided he was guilty and dispatched him to a monastery to atone in silence.

We also know that Blessed John Paul trusted him and liked him.  So what do you know?  A sleazy liar managed to convince someone he was a man of God.  Isn't that what we know about most abusers?  They are manipulative, they lie, cheat, steal.  They take advantage and Blessed John Paul exercised poor judgment of his character.  Of course for years now we've been listening to them trying to attach this to Ratzinger and it will not stick.

Of course what Flannery is hoping to do is to twist things round so we start thinking it was Blessed John Paul who was the crook.  I doubt if he genuinely believes it but he'd like to hint that Blessed John Paul knew all about Maciel's wickedness and covered it up because Maciel was conservative and a good fundraiser.


Fkannery thinks he is excavating "the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism....the narcissism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.  The rape and torture of children were downplayed or 'managed' to uphold instead, the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and 'reputation'.  Far from listening to evidence of humiliation and betrayal with St Benedict's 'ear of the heart'......the Vatican's reaction was to parse and analyse it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer."

Now where have we heard this before?  Oh yes, Herod Kenny - in a speech widely believed to have been inspired, if not written, by Flannery via his brother Frank Flannery, adviser to Kenny.

This is the same Tony Flannery who wrote an article attacking mandatory reporting because of the impact it had on the relationship between bishops and priests.  He had to be rebuked by Blessed Ian Elliott

35th daily sayings of light and love (St John of the Cross)

Well and good if all things change, Lord God, provided we are rooted in you.

Who's reading Catholicus Nua?

Last week's Top Ten countries:

Ireland                 3,002

United Kingdom   2,318

United States          803

Italy                        320

Germany                169

Netherlands            130

Peru                        78

France                     59

Canada                   52

South Korea           48

Lost in Oblivion and The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Reading the last book in a very good five part series by Anthony Horowitz.  It's Oblivion, part of the Power of Five series.  Have read the first four books in a very short time - love finding good series that are all already written and published - and where the series isn't monumentally long - please, no Discworld or Wheel of Time.

Anthony Horowitz is a good writer of childen's books - creator of the Alex Rider series.  And far removed from children's fiction he writes for Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War.

The Power of Five books are very apocalyptic.  Set in the world as we know it, only with the addition of the super evil Old Ones (not to be confused with the sort of Auld Wans we find in Ireland) and five children with extraordinary powers.  The narrative moves at a cracking pace.  Recommended reading from about ten upwards.

For Mother's Day - yes, my yankee friends, it was this Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Lent, Laetare Sunday, not the second Sunday in May - the kids bought my wife, inter alia, a DVD of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which we watched this evening.  I enjoyed it a lot.  Those who know me will know it's my sort of film - teenage angst, with characters who talk a lot in full paragraphs.  The profound thought from the movie is:

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

which made me think of Sunday's gospel, the Prodigal Son and the difficultly people can have in accepting the love of God in their lives.  We miss the love and grace that He offers because we think we don't deserve it.  Of course we don't deserve it - that's not the point with God.  If we got what we deserved it wouldn't be God.

Certainly wouldn't be Emma Watson either I suspect.

34th daily sayings of light and love (St John of the Cross)

I didn’t know you, my Lord because I still desired to know and relish things.