The conclave to select the next pope has begun after Catholic cardinals from across the world filed into the Sistine Chapel Wednesday before sealing themselves inside.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo led the Sioux City diocese as bishop for six years during the early 2000s. The 75-year-old is participating in his second conclave after being an elector during the 2013 papal conclave that selected Pope Francis, who died last month at the age of 88.

On the second day of the conclave, white smoke emerged from the Sistine Chapel, meaning a new pope has been elected.

Catholic cardinals will sequester themselves Wednesday behind the Vatican’s medieval walls for the start of a conclave to elect the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church has issued a warning to its clergy in Washington state: Any priest who complies with a new law requiring the reporting of child abuse confessions to authorities will be excommunicated.

Catholic Charities uses Cozen O'Connor for state government lobbying. So does Rush University Medical Center, which performs abortions, and CVS Health, whose pharmacies dispense prescriptions that end pregnancies.

Leo XIV held his first Mass as pope in the Sistine Chapel on Friday, in what was a private service for the 132 voting cardinals who elected him as the 267th leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics a day earlier.

A little after 1 p.m. Thursday, when word arrived locally that a conclave of cardinal electors at the Vatican had chosen Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost — an Am