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Conclave
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Chapters 13-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “The Inner Sanctum”
Tedesco and Tremblay campaign over dinner. Bellini’s supporters are torn over the presumed outcomes of the conclave. Lomeli, meanwhile, remains disturbed by Benítez’s criticism.
Lomeli retires early and passes by Sister Agnes’ office to ask about Sister Shanumi. After learning that the nun has already been sent back to Nigeria, Lomeli probes deeper into the reasons for her assignment in Rome. Sister Agnes is reticent to speak further on the matter, but when Lomeli confides his belief that the late pope had a plan for the conclave, the nun shows him an email revealing that it was not the pope who requested Sister Shanumi’s assignment. It was Cardinal Tremblay.
Convinced that Tremblay conspired to sabotage Adeyemi’s chance at the papacy, Lomeli confronts him, urging him to withdraw from the election. Tremblay is outraged by the accusation but finally admits that he did it on behalf of the late pope. Lomeli fails to believe his explanation and urges him to withdraw once again. Tremblay accuses Lomeli of trying to strengthen his position in the conclave.
Unable to sleep that night, Lomeli sneaks into the late pope’s apartment, breaking the seal over the door. He inspects the pope’s belongings and finds nothing at first. After kneeling before the pope’s bed and praying for guidance, he feels the pope’s spirit guide him toward several concealed drawers in the bed frame.
Inside, he finds an annotated document recording the sizes of the apartments belonging to the senior Vatican officials, as well as their suggested net worth. The document concludes that the officials are underreporting their incomes. Another document reveals the contents of their bank accounts, which suggest that many of the cardinals are secretly rich. Lomeli realizes that these revelations were what bothered the late pope during his final months.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Simony”
Lomeli visits Bellini to encourage his bid for the papacy. Bellini remains reluctant to defy the conclave’s will. Lomeli shows him the documents he removed from the pope’s apartment, specifically a report that exposes Tremblay for simony, buying votes from cardinals in South America and Africa.
Lomeli shares his plan to disseminate the report amongst the cardinals. Bellini is scandalized, fearing that a smear campaign against Tremblay will either catalyze Tedesco’s victory or taint his papacy. Lomeli challenges him to value his integrity over his relationships with the other cardinals. Bellini argues that the only way to truly serve God is to preserve the integrity of the Church leadership, which he sees as the “heart and brain of the Church” (215). He goes on to interpret the late pope’s tenure as a culture war within the Church, isolating him from the cardinals whose extravagant behaviors and repressive values he greatly disapproved of. When Bellini suggests destroying the Tremblay report, Lomeli is disillusioned with Bellini and criticizes him for his cowardice.
Lomeli creates copies of the report with Sister Agnes’s help, obscuring the names of Tremblay’s beneficiaries. They distribute the copies in the dining room, and Lomeli admits to entering the sealed apartment and circulating the report. Tremblay’s supporters denounce Lomeli in front of the college. Benítez consoles Lomeli, encouraging him to heed his conscience.
Finally, Tremblay confronts Lomeli before the college, calling for his resignation. Lomeli counters by revealing Tremblay’s dismissal from office. Tedesco steps in to verify the report’s truthfulness by asking for the redacted names of Tremblay’s beneficiaries. Lomeli refuses, suggesting that these cardinals have their own consciences to answer to. He agrees to step down, naming Bellini as his replacement.
Sister Agnes intervenes to expose Tremblay’s blackmail of Adeyemi. Tremblay once again defends himself by claiming he acted on behalf of the pope. Adeyemi calls Tremblay a Judas.
Chapter 15 Summary: “The Sixth Ballot”
Lomeli reiterates to Bellini his intention to step down as dean. Bellini suggests that the conclave’s sentiment is now shifting in Lomeli’s favor.
O’Malley informs Lomeli that the public is growing restless over the prolonged election. He also shares his discoveries about Benítez: shortly after he withdrew his request to resign as Archbishop of Baghdad, he was scheduled to travel to Geneva, Switzerland on the Pope’s account. The reason for travel was listed as “medical treatment” and his listed address was a private hospital. The treatment’s nature is unclear to O’Malley but in any case, Benítez never used the plane ticket.
While taking attendance at the Sistine Chapel, Lomeli quietly takes note of Tremblay’s beneficiaries. He realizes how much Tremblay had leveraged their respective missions’ need for funding to buy their votes. He also understands that despite their frailties, they were all necessary to execute the mission of the Church.
Unable to commit his vote to a better candidate, Lomeli casts his ballot for Bellini once more. He no longer feels his choice is correct, however. Tedesco leads the result, followed surprisingly by Lomeli. Benítez has likewise climbed to third place, leaving the other frontrunners behind.
Chapter 16 Summary: “The Seventh Ballot”
The conclave proceeds immediately into the next ballot. Lomeli is unwilling to become pope and prays that the burden passes from him. Contemplating his vote, however, he is torn and realizes that he is the only one who stands a chance to upset a Tedesco papacy. He votes for himself and just as he places his vote in the ballot, there is an explosion somewhere nearby.
Benítez suspects that it was a car bomb. Lomeli restores order to the conclave, proposing they push forward with the ballot. He remains alarmed by the explosion’s timing with his decision to vote for himself. Nevertheless, Lomeli emerges as the election’s frontrunner, with Tedesco trailing in second place and Benítez in third.
As the college evacuates, O’Malley confirms that a car bomb exploded simultaneously with a suicide bomb attack in two nearby public areas. The two bombings are part of a coordinated attack across Europe conducted by an unspecified group. Some eyewitnesses have suggested that the attack was religiously motivated. Lomeli decides not to disseminate any information about the attack to the college, though he remains unresolved on whether to carry on with the conclave.
He prays before Michelangelo’s fresco of the crucified St. Peter for guidance. St. Peter’s steadfastness amidst the violence being committed against him inspires him to carry on.
Chapters 13-16 Analysis
Tremblay has long been positioned as the safe bet of the conclave, leading not with definitive political stances but his ambition to become pope. Even Lomeli, who was previously repulsed by Tremblay’s ambition, considers him a moderate choice because of his political malleability. Following Benítez’s challenge to obey his oath, however, Lomeli becomes concerned about what the compromise would actually mean to him. When he learns that Tremblay’s ambition is a façade for a total lack of integrity, the implications of accepting a compromise become more severe. It would mean that Lomeli unwittingly endorsed the dirty tricks Tremblay plays to advance his position, from buying votes to blackmailing his rivals. The fact that Tremblay buys the votes of the cardinals leading some of the world’s poorest missions points to a deep moral rot at the Church’s heart. Tremblay thrives while members of the Catholic Church suffer from poverty, war, and sexual abuse. Yet for Tremblay’s beneficiaries, resorting to corruption is the only way to ensure the well-being of their missions. They cannot convince the Church to give them those resources through ordinary means. Thus, to accept Tremblay as a viable candidate would also mean condoning the Church’s failure to fulfill its mission. Seemingly innocuous decisions with the conclave play into The Politics of Religion as a theme.
It is telling that Lomeli comes upon this revelation by breaking into the pope’s sealed apartment. This action speaks to the tension that Benítez pointed out in Chapter 12 between a legalistic fixation on Church tradition and a sincere willingness to go above and beyond to fulfill the will of God. Although Lomeli knows that he would be breaking Church tradition by trespassing into the apartment, he knows it is the only way to unlock the truth about Tremblay and the late pope’s loss of faith in the Church. Lomeli stands by the consequences of his actions, knowing that he deserves to step down if that is the cost of preventing someone as corrupt as Tremblay from abusing Church power.
The surprising byproduct of this decision is that Lomeli himself becomes a viable candidate for the papacy. The anonymity of the ballot makes it impossible to know who among the blocs and factions has come to stand behind him, but it is at least clear that whoever does support him believes in his intentions to break tradition. He thus fulfills what Benítez says about his worthiness as a papal candidate.
Ironically, Lomeli’s reward is short-lived. The moment he advocates for himself as the next pontiff, the Vatican falls under attack, and to Lomeli, it feels like poetic justice to temper his vanity. Just when he develops the ego to believe he could become pope, the world reminds him what is at stake for whoever leads the Church next. Hence, Harris pushes forward the theme of Human Ambition and Divine Providence.
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By Robert Harris
