Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.
Coming to you live from London, I'm Rajini Vaidyanathan.
After hours of waiting, the conclave had decided.
At around 6pm local time in Vatican City,
large plumes of white smoke were seen from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel.
A new Pope had been elected.
We'll be live with Mark Lowen, who's there for us in a second.
But let's hear Mark as he captured the elation of that special moment in St Peter's Square.
Unfortunately,
I do not have a direct line of communication to the cardinals inside the Sistine Chapel.
Any cardinal that breaks, we have smoke.
Well, there we are.
We have white smoke.
What a moment, Mark Lowen there,
right in the heart of a historic moment as the smoke emitted from the Sistine Chapel.
Well, an hour or so after that,
the official announcement was made in Latin by the Proto-Deacon Cardinal Dominique Mamberti to tens of thousands of worshippers and others who gathered in the square.
I announce to you a great joy.
We have a Pope, the most eminent and most reverent Lord, Lord Robert Francis Prevost,
Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, who has taken the name Leo XIV.