Priest at the Conclave to choose new Pope has a very famous sibling that you'd recognise straight away

A cardinal casting his vote in the largest ever conclave for the next Catholic pope has an extremely famous brother, who is best known for his roles in gangster movies The Sopranos and Goodfellas.

Black smoke emanated from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney this morning (May 8), indicating that the conclave following the death of Pope Francis was unable to elect a new pope in the official third voting round.

Among the 133 voting cardinals sequestered inside the Vatican are the likes of: Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, the first Ghanaian to be made a cardinal under Pope John Paul II in 2003; Vincent Nichols, the former Archbishop of Birmingham and current president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, and Timothy Dolan, an American Catholic prelate who has served as Archbishop of New York since 2009.

Another cardinal taking part in the May 2025 conclave is Robert Alan Sirico, a US-based priest and founder of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Born in 1951 in New York, the Catholic Church representative was originally raised in a religious setting, but temporarily left faith behind in his early teenage years.

However, after a deeper study of Christian anthropology, Sirico returned to the Catholic Church in 1977 and was ordained as a Paulist priest 12 years later.

The devout follower of Christ, whose writings have appeared in revered publications such as The Wall Street Journal, the Journal of Markets & Morality and The New York Times, was inducted into the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) in 1990.

Former members of the international academic society of economists, political philosophers, and other intellectuals include Nobel laureates like Friedrich Hayek and notable figures like Ludwig Erhard and Luigi Einaudi.

As well as serving on the board of advisers for Instituto Fe y Libertad, in Guatemala, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the Ciciv Institute in Prague, Sirico also has a very famous sibling, who died in 2022.

The cardinal is one of the 133 voting in the 2025 conclave (The Acton Institute)

This former star, whose acting credits include The Sopranos, Goodfellas and various Woody Allen movies, is none other than Genaro Anthony ‘Tony’ Sirico Jr.

The legendary actor, who was born in 1942, made his film debut as an extra in the 1974 flick Crazy Joe, before playing gangsters in the likes of Mighty Aphrodite, The Last Fight, Bullets over Broadway and Mickey Blue Eyes.

Speaking about Tony’s death in 2022, the clergyman said: “It is with great sadness, but with incredible pride, love and a whole lot of fond memories, that the family of Gennaro Anthony 'Tony' Sirico wishes to inform you of his death on the morning of July 8, 2022.

“I sensed that the end was coming. So as we sat in a private location, I pulled out a Confessional Stole from my pocket. I looked into his eyes and I said, 'How about that confession?'

Anthony 'Tony' Sirico is best known for his role in gangster films and TV shows (HBO)

'My brother agreed and I did one of the most significant things a priest can do for another human being. I absolved him of all of his sins.”

The conclave to elect the 267th Pope is expected to continue through this afternoon, with the next vote set to begin at 4pm local time (10 am ET).

It’s not known at this stage whether the event will extend to Friday (May 9), as two-thirds of the conclave must pick the same name before the voting can conclude.

The previous two conclaves famously wrapped up in less than three days, resulting in the elections of pope John Paul II in 1978, pope Benedict XVI in 2005, and pope Francis in 2013.

Cardinal Parolin, who is presiding over the papal conclave, is also the current frontrunner in the contest to become the next pope, Sky News writes.