This morning, Australian time was a unique and monumental moment. The ability to view an event on the other side of the world in real time on a small mobile device such as a Phone is something that was not possible in 2005 when Pope Benedict XVI was elected.
This morning, whilst lying awake in the early hours, a thought came to me that I should check on proceedings at the conclave. It was my body clock working its miracles again as it has so many times before. I had been using the live web cam feed on my previous post to keep an eye on things and had the page open through the web browser on the phone.
As usual, nothing was happening but I kept watching. It was a surreal moment soon after when what looked to be Black smoke began rising from the chimney. But then it changed, and it was clear to me immediately. It was not on of those moments where I was unclear. I was somewhat surprised to feel a wave of emotions pass over me as the realisation that we had a new Pope dawned on me.
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pope Francis |
When I got to the TV, the news stations still had not picked up on the news. For the next 8 or 9 minutes or so, I found myself fixated on the live feed to the Vatican on my iPad. Again, it was another surreal moment of watching and listening to an event with no interference from commentators, it was simply the sounds of excited crowds and the toiling of the St Peters Basilica bells.
Unlike the election of Benedict XVI, the bells started to ring very soon after the smoke rose from the chapel chimney.
The election of a new Pope is something that is a relatively rare event although there has been two in the last 8 years, prior to Benedict XVI it had been almost 30 years since these historic events.
No comments:
Post a Comment