Conclave

by Robert Harris

“The Pope had doubts about God?” “Not about God! Never about God!” And then Bellini said something Lomeli would never forget. “What he had lost faith in was the Church.”

An excess of simplicity, after all, was just another form of ostentation, and pride in one’s humility a sin.

“It’s not that I want it, you understand? No sane man could possibly want the papacy.” “Some of our colleagues seem to.” “Well then they’re fools, or worse. We both saw what it did to the Holy Father. It’s a Calvary.”

Celibacy had not made him feel neutered or frustrated, as the secular word generally imagined a priest must be, but rather powerful and fulfilled. He had imagined himself a warrior within a knightly caste: a lonely and untouchable hero, above the common run.

We are mortal men. We serve an ideal; we cannot always be ideal.”

After his acceptance, the person elected was immediately Bishop of the Church of Rome, true Pope and head of the College of Bishops. He thus acquired and could exercise full and supreme power over the Universal Church.

One word of assent, one name provided, one signature appended, and it was done: in its simplicity was its glory.

he said that he felt as though a great wind had briefly lifted him off his feet and whirled him into the air, only to set him down abruptly and go whirling off after someone else.