Cardinals to start second day of voting for new pope Black smoke announces that the first day of the Conclave has ended without a new leader of the Roman Catholic Church (AP) Among the cardinals Italy's Angelo Scola, Brazil's Odilo Scherer and Canada's Marc Ouellet - all conservatives like Benedict - are the three favourites but there is no clear frontrunner and conclaves are notoriously difficult to predict. Some analysts suggest that Benedict's dramatic act - the first papal resignation in over 700 years - could push the cardinals to take an equally unusual decision and that an outsider could emerge as a compromise candidate. Hopes are high in the Philippines for the popular Archbishop of Manila, Luis Antonio Tagle, and on the African continent for South Africa's Wilfrid Napier, the archbishop of Durban, but in practice their chances are very slim. Two-thirds of the cardinals are from Europe and North America and the view among many experts is that only someone with experience of its inner workings can reform the scandal-tainted Vatican bureaucracy, the Roman Curia. The cardinals on Tuesday filed into the chapel, chanting a Latin hymn to ask for divine guidance and swearing a solemn oath never to reveal the secrets of their deliberations on pain of excommunication. The "Princes of the Church" are cut off from any contact with the outside world for the duration of the conclave. They eat and sleep in a Vatican residence where windows are locked shut and phones are for internal use only. Modern-day conclaves normally last no more than a few days. Benedict's election in 2005 following the death of John Paul II took just two days. The tradition of holding conclaves - literally "with key" in Latin - dates back to 1268 when cardinals were locked into the papal palace in Viterbo near Rome by an angry crowd because they were taking too long to choose a pope.