The Doors are Closed.

Image captured from FoxNews

The doors to the Sistine Chapel have been closed and the Conclave has commenced!

Fortunately, I am on Spring Break from teaching so I was able to watch as the Cardinals entered the Sistine Chapel, took their oaths and then watch live as the doors were closed. I was alerted on my iPhone by the PopeApp. I began watching the live feed on my phone and then went to CatholicTV to watch their live video stream. I was not able to get EWTN's feed to work.

I recently wrote a review of good resources to follow the conclave entitled Tools for the Toolbox. If you are on the go, I recommend the Conclave App and the PopeApp. You still have time to Adopt a Cardinal and to sign up for the FOCUS Pope Alarm which will email and/or text you upon the election of the new pope.

If you were not as fortunate as me to watch the scenes live, I have included a video from Rome Reports covering the aforementioned events:

The Pope App

As we count the hours to the end of Pope Benedict's pontificate and await the beginning of the Conclave, we might want an easy way to keep up with all things from the Vatican. The Pope App is the perfect way to accomplish this.

After initially opening the app to the title page, the screen opens to an image which lets you know when you can follow the pope live. For example in this image taken a few minutes ago, we can see it will be 3 hours until the pope can be seen live.

The Pope App is organized into 9 different screens. These include the ability to view LIVE feeds, check a calendar of upcoming EVENTS, read messages From the Pope, see NEWS, view IMAGES, archived VIDEOS, and WEBCAMS from the Vatican. The app even includes a page dedicated to all things VATICANO.

The LIVE feed not only shows the events that are upcoming, but also allow you to set reminder alarms to check in. This will come in handy once the Conclave begins.

The NEWS feed captures articles on the pope and his messages. They come from a variety of sources including Vatican Radio and L'Osservatore Romano.

The Vaticano page links to several media outlets from the Vatican including the Pope's twitter feed that will continue to be active assuming the new pope chooses to tweet.

The Pope App is powered by the official Vatican Media and is currently only available in iOS format (Apple products). The app is FREE.