Conclave

by Robert Harris

He was praying: O Lord, he still has so much to do, whereas all my useful work in Your service is completed. He is beloved, while I am forgotten. Spare him, Lord. Spare him. Take me instead.

Damn what a way to start bro!!

who had the advantage of seeming to be an American without the disadvantage of actually being one;

From inside his cassock Tremblay took out what appeared to be a prayer book bound in black leather, but which turned out to be a mobile phone.

Still, there was a part of Lomeli that rather hankered after Renaissance flummery,

I know what you are

Lomeli looked around for Benítez and saw him standing alone behind a pillar just outside the dining room. O’Malley had somehow managed to dig out a cassock with the red sash and piping of a cardinal, but it was slightly too large for its new recipient. He seemed lost in it.

Babygirl 🥺

But gradually he gathered they were either slum districts where Benítez had served as a priest, or street gangs he had confronted while building rescue missions for their victims, mostly child prostitutes and drug addicts. The missions still existed, and people still spoke of “the priest with the gentle voice” who had built them.

The other cardinals had broken off their private conversations and were all listening. One never knew what Tedesco might say.

He had known what it was to desire, and to be desired, both by women and by men.

Once, in his youth, Lomeli had enjoyed a modest fame for the richness of his baritone. But it had become thin with age, like a fine wine left too long.

You’re telling me a cis teen painted this chapel???

He could see Benítez standing over by the reception desk, in conversation with the other two cardinals from the Philippines. He was wearing his zucchetto at a sideways angle, like a schoolboy’s cap.

“But that is absurd! What did I call for? Three things: unity; tolerance; humility. Are colleagues now suggesting we need a Pope who is schismatic, intolerant and arrogant?”

I mean,,,,,

Lomeli pressed the button for the second floor. “Perhaps it would have been more palatable to you in Latin, Patriarch?” The doors closed, cutting off Tedesco’s reply.

Damn bitch slay

A childish self-pity welled within him. Did he have to think of everything? Shouldn’t Father Zanetti be looking after him just a little better?

He needs someone to take care of him!!!!

Sister Agnes was reputed to be the only person of whom the late Holy Father had been afraid, and perhaps for that reason he had often sought out her company. “Agnes,” he used to say, “will always tell me the truth.”

Sister Anjelica, who kept house for him, was always telling him he was too thin, that he should eat more.

Well you skipped breakfast and lunch so she’s definitely right!!!!

Only Tedesco seemed immune to it. He was leaning against a pillar, humming to himself and smiling at everyone as they passed.

I know he doesn’t vape in the book but I’m still imagining it

It didn’t have to be one of the front-runners. There was an old saying: “He who enters the Conclave a Pope leaves it a cardinal.”

So true!!!

The winds and the waves our ship is battling go by many different names—atheism, nationalism, agnosticism, Marxism, liberalism, individualism, feminism, capitalism—but every one of these ‘isms’ seeks to divert us from our true course.

Some of my favorite isms

The Filipino had an attractive quality, he thought, not easy to define: an inner grace.

God has entered the room, thought Lomeli.

G-d has entered the chat

Lomeli stared at him. When there wasn’t a Conclave, the Irishman was Secretary of the Congregation for Bishops. He had access to the files on five thousand senior clerics. He was said to have a nose for discovering secrets.

“I should add there is great interest in Cardinal Benítez. We have put out a biographical note, as you requested. I have also included a background note for you, in confidence. He really has enjoyed the most remarkable series of promotions of any bishop in the Church.”

Cuz he’s special!!!! My special boy!!!

What was certain was that the man represented the best that the Christian faith had to offer.

“My dear Vincent—may I call you Vincent?—I

Cardinal Lomeli asks “can I call you Vincent” and doesn’t wait for an answer

Could it really be true that the Holy Father had known the Filipino well enough, and trusted him enough, to criticise his own Secretary of State?

I think everyone who meets Vincent just immediately trusts him and wants to tell him all their secrets

Just before nine o’clock, Lomeli pushed away his untouched plate, rose and announced to the table that it was time to return to the Sistine Chapel.

BABYGIRL YOU NEED TO EAT

Benítez had also increased his support, from one vote to two.

IF BENÍTEZ HAS ONE VOTE IT’S ME IF HE HAS NO VOTES I’M DEAD

Sabbadin you didn’t have to be racist about it :/

Let me say at once that I hold Cardinal Benítez in high esteem, as clearly do several of our brothers—he is a true man of God—but was it really necessary for him to be elevated in secret, and in such haste?”

Stop DOUBTING THOMAS

I was looking for Cardinal Benítez.” “Ah, the new boy!

Lomeli watched the Filipino as he sat on the bed and pulled on his socks. He was struck afresh by how young and trim he looked for a man of sixty-seven—boyish almost, with his lock of jet-black hair spilling like ink across his face as he bent forward. For Lomeli these days, putting on a pair of socks could take ten minutes. Yet the Filipino’s limbs and fingers seemed as lithe and nimble as a twenty-year-old’s. Perhaps he practised yoga by candlelight, as well as praying.

“So I take it you have come to ask me to vote for Cardinal Tremblay?” He was sharper than he seemed, thought Lomeli.

Benítez stood and extended his hand. “I meant no offence, Dean, and I am sorry if I have given it. But I cannot vote for a man unless he is the one I deem most worthy to be Pope. And for me, that man is not Cardinal Tremblay: it is you.”

“How many more times, Your Eminence?” Lomeli struck the side of his chair in his frustration. “I do not want your vote!” “Nevertheless, you will have it.”

“I would, except that, as you know, I am sequestered for the duration of the Conclave.”

Them: “say the line!” Lomeli:

She stared him out with those indomitable blue eyes. She could be guillotined or burnt at the stake; she would not yield. If I had ever married, he thought, I would have wanted a wife like this.

“I thought we were here to serve God, not the Curia.” “Oh don’t be naïve, Jacopo—you of all people! I have been fighting these battles for longer than you have, and the truth of the matter is that we can only serve God through the Church of His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Curia is the heart and brain of the Church, however imperfect it may be.”

I just love how he’s exactly the opposite of Benítez!!! Sorry Aldo but u kinda suck!!

It was many years since the Dean of the College of Cardinals had used a photocopier. Indeed, now that he looked at one, he was not sure he ever had.

Of course, the thing would reach the press eventually. Sooner or later, everything did. Had not Jesus Christ Himself prophesied, according to Luke’s Gospel, that nothing is hid that shall not be made manifest, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light?

He grasped his pectoral cross. Forgive me, Lord, if today I try to serve You in a different way…

Those who were among the first to leave the chapel and enter the dining room were struck by the spectacle of Lomeli sitting alone and impassive at one of the central tables, his forearms resting on the tablecloth, his gaze fixed ahead, unseeing.

Drama queen

At one point Benítez fetched him some bread and fruit and beckoned to one of the nuns to pour him coffee. He took the seat beside him. “You must eat, Dean, or you will make yourself ill.”

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

“And yet Archbishop Woźniak insists that the Holy Father told him personally of the conversation, and that he was so agitated over dinner when he was recalling it that his distress may have contributed to his death.”

Bro plssss 😭😭😭😭

meeting was with you by the end. You are steering this Conclave—exactly where I do not know, but you are certainly steering it, and that firm hand of yours will have its admirers.”

When he had finished, he whispered, “One other thing, Your Eminence. It’s very trivial. I needn’t bother you with it, if you’d prefer not to know.” “Go on.”

Exhausted by the events of the night, he fell asleep almost as soon as he sat down, only waking an hour later when something fluttered on to the desk in front of him. His chin was resting on his chest. He opened his eyes to find a folded note: And behold there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. Matthew 8:24. He looked around to see Bellini leaning forward, looking at him.

He picked up his pen and scribbled beneath the quotation: I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. Psalm 3. Then he tossed the note back. Bellini read it and nodded judiciously, as if Lomeli was one of his old students at the Gregorian who had returned a correct answer.

This is so cute 🥺🥺

Lomeli’s hand moved up and down the list of cardinals, and he did not know which alarmed him most: the line of marks accumulating beside Tedesco’s name, or the threatening number that had started to cluster next to his own.

I don’t know what you were expecting!!!!!!

Benítez 19

19 people saw him bring Lomeli breakfast and thought yes that’s the kind of malewife energy we need in a pope