Black Smoke Emerges From Sistine Chapel Chimney: No Pope On First Try

[Posteritatis]

43. This is totally normal

They hold four votes a day and it's usually a few days before they work out a consensus. I don't know if a first-ballot election has ever happened.

Benedict's involved four ballots (or possibly three; there's reports that he asked for a fourth to confirm but that's speculation given the secrecy around the conclave) and that was considered a pretty fast one.

John Paul II's involved eight ballots over three days; Pius XI's took fourteen over most of a week. The longest one in the last couple of centuries was Gregory XVI's, which took eighty-three(!) ballots and most of six weeks. Going past the early 1800s they usually dragged on for months, but it's much more streamlined now.

We'll probably have an answer from this conclave well before the end of the week, though I wouldn't be surprised if it took longer than JPII's.

The prophecy of the popes is more or less considered crankery; it's nothing like official church doctrine in any way. I don't know anybody who takes it seriously who isn't well into kookdom or is a sedevacantist or something.