Vatican's Conclave of Colours

By Stan Itodoebi

On the evening of 7 May 7 2025, the ancient chimney of the Sistine Chapel wheezed once again, exhaling a dark plume over the Vatican. It was the first day of the papal conclave and the first failed vote. Thousands in St. Peter’s Square watched, sighed, and turned away, not from the Church, but from the colour of the smoke - Black - the colour of indecision, failure, the unchosen.

It is, of course, all perfectly traditional. Since 1878, the Vatican has communicated the outcome of its secretive conclaves through the sacred semaphore of smoke. White smoke: Habemus Papam!. Black smoke: Try again tomorrow. Nothing to see here unless, of course, you happen to live in a world still haunted by the symbolism of colour.

It's because in this curious theatre of the divine, the most powerful religious institution on earth still relies on a colour scheme that would make a 19th-century colonial governor nod in approval. Black is failure. White is triumph. And this, we are told, is mere symbolism.

Yes; it's symbolism that has a centuries-long habit of refusing to be just symbolic. In Western culture, black has always drawn the short straw. In literature, black is the villain’s cloak. In religious art, it is the devil’s wardrobe. In countless pulpits and classrooms, darkness is ignorance, sin, danger; light is knowledge, virtue, salvation. It's a dichotomy so entrenched it rarely raises eyebrows except when puffed dramatically from a sacred chimney of the Vatican.

Should this matter in the year 2025? Perhaps not; but it does, especially in a Church, whose spiritual headquarters still bears the silence of colonialism, whose leadership remains predominantly European, and whose gestures, however ceremonial, ripple across continents.

And so the question rises with the smoke - must black always lose?

Let’s not pretend the Vatican hasn’t tried modernity. Latin gave way to vernacular. There’s even talk of synodality. But on the most sacred of days, the election of Peter’s successor, the Church returns to its favourite shade of medieval: black for non grata, white for divinely approved.

Of course, the College of Cardinals is diverse, numerically speaking. This conclave includes electors from 70 countries. There are Nigerians, Brazilians, Filipinos, and Congolese. But when the ballots burn and the chimney exhales, the final judgment remains coded in a logic that predates modern equality by centuries.

It’s enough to make one ask, perhaps irreverently: if Satan is depicted as black, could it be that he hails from the dark continent?

The symbolism of colour is not inert. It shapes worldviews. It has justified slavery, sustained apartheid, and lingers still in the subtext of global power. And yes, it rises quietly in smoke signals that signal more than they intend.

To be fair, the Vatican could argue: it’s about visibility. White smoke is simply easier to see against the Roman sky. But let us not forget: this is a Church that once saw Galileo’s telescope as heresy. Clarity, after all, is not always the point.

What if the next conclave used blue smoke for delay, or gold for success? What if the colour scheme reflected the diversity of the Church, not the binaries of an imperial past?

Or better still, what if the white smoke one day rose to announce the election of a Black pope? Then, we would have something truly symbolic; a Church whose signal is no longer encoded in old prejudices, but in prophetic surprise.

Until then, let the Vatican chimney puff. Let the faithful watch. Let the symbolism smoke itself out.