"Habemus Papam!" "We have a Pope!" These are the words the world's Catholics wait for each time the white smoke rises above the Vatican to announce a new pope has been chosen, and which will be spoke Wednesday afternoon by French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran.

Tauran's words will be heard by thousands of Catholics gathered at the Vatican, as well as by millions of TV viewers, as they ring out from the central balcony at St. Peter's Basilica.

Traditionally, the announcement -- which unless he is selected as the new pope, is given by the current cardinal proto-deacon in this case Tauran -- is given as follows in Latin:

"Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum:
Habemus Papam;
Eminentissimum ac reverendissimum Dominum,
Dominum [First Name] Sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ Cardinalem [Last Name],
Qui sibi nomen imposuit [Papal Name]."

The text as translated to English is below:

"I announce to you a great joy:
We have a Pope!
The most eminent and most reverend Lord,
Lord [First Name] Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church [Last Name],
Who takes for himself the name of [Papal Name]."

However, in 2005, when Pope Benedict XVI was elected to the papacy, Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez began the remarks by greeting the faithful with the phrase "dear brothers and sisters" in Italian, Spanish, French and English.

Whoever is chosen to be 226th pope in the church's 2,000-year history, the world will meet him today. And no matter how exactly the transcript is worded this year, the election of a new pope is a momentous occasion with great import to the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

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