Conclave

by Robert Harris

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it…

The Archbishop of Kampala, Oliver Nakitanda, was holding a spare chair and a handful of cutlery he had retrieved from a neighbouring table, and the cardinals were all shifting round to make room for Benítez to join them.

The new Archbishop of Maputo, whose name Lomeli had forgotten, beckoned to one of the sisters to bring an extra serving of soup.

Lomeli noticed how from time to time he would glance over at Benítez with an expression of puzzled irritation.

Around the table were the conservative archbishops—Agrigento, Florence, Palermo, Perugia—and Tutino, the disgraced Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, who had always been considered a liberal but who no doubt hoped that a Tedesco pontificate might rescue his career.

Because what I would try to say, in my simple peasant Latin, is this: that change almost invariably produces the opposite effect to the improvement it is intended to bring about, and that we should bear that in mind when we come to make our choice of Pope. The abandonment of Latin, for example…”

“Look around this dining room, Dean. Observe how unconsciously, how instinctively, we have arranged ourselves according to our native languages. We Italians are here—closest to the kitchens, very sensibly. The Spanish-speakers are sitting there. The English-speakers are over towards the reception. Yet when you and I were boys, Dean, and the Tridentine Mass was still the liturgy of the entire world, the cardinals at a Conclave were able to converse with one another in Latin. But then in 1962, the liberals insisted we should get rid of a dead language in order to make communication easier, and now what do we see? They have only succeeded in making communication harder!”

I agree with this! Traditionalim should be the roots of Catholicism

“The Universal Church? But how can a thing be considered universal if it speaks fifty different languages? Language is vital. Because from language, over time, arises thought, and from thought arises philosophy and culture. It has been sixty years since the Second Vatican Council, but already what it means to be a Catholic in Europe is no longer the same as what it means to be a Catholic in Africa, or Asia, or South America. We have become a confederation, at best. Look around the room, Dean—look at the way language divides us over even such a simple meal as this, and tell me there is not truth in what I say.”

may the Next Pope bring back more TLM in many parishes ! Amen

“The abandonment of Latin,” persisted Tedesco, “will lead eventually to the abandonment of Rome. Mark my words.”

Okay i like Tedesco character. He relates to me so much about Catholicism

“I am perfectly serious, Dean. Men will soon be asking openly: why Rome? They’ve already started to whisper it. There’s no rule in doctrine or Scripture that says the Pope must preside in Rome. He could set up the Throne of St. Peter anywhere on earth.

“So now we have three cardinal-electors from that country, which has—what?—eighty-four million Catholics. In Italy we have fifty-seven million—the great majority of whom never take Communion in any case—and yet we have twenty-six cardinal-electors! You think this anomaly will continue for much longer? If you do, you are a fool.”

“Now I have spoken too harshly, and I apologise. But I fear this Conclave may be our last chance to preserve our Mother the Church. Another ten years like the last ten—another Holy Father like the last one—and she will cease to exist as we know her.”

“Yes, I am! Why not? We haven’t had an Italian Pope for more than forty years. There’s never been such an interregnum in all of history. We have to recover the papacy, Dean, to save the Roman Church. Surely all Italians can agree on that?”

Disagree with this lol. All races of men can be Pope as all human races are created in the image of God

The former Secretary of State was sitting with his praetorian guard: Sabbadin, the Archbishop of Milan; Landolfi of Turin; Dell’Acqua of Bologna; and a couple of members of the Curia—Santini, who was not only Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education but also Senior Cardinal-Deacon, which meant that he would be the one who proclaimed the name of the new Pope from the balcony of St. Peter’s; and Cardinal Panzavecchia, who ran the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Bellini nodded towards Tedesco. “Tell them I stand for everything he does not. His beliefs are sincere, but they are sincere nonsense. We are never returning to the days of Latin liturgy, and priests celebrating Mass with their backs to the congregation, and families of ten children because Mamma and Papà know no better. It was an ugly, repressive time, and we should be joyful that it has passed. Tell them that I stand for respecting other faiths, and for tolerating differing views within our own Church. Tell them I believe the bishops should have greater powers and that women should play more of a role within the Curia—”

It's very clear this book tries to depict that Tradionalist Cardinals are backwards and evil and Progressive Cardinals are good and a hero. This could misrepresent Catholicism.

Bellini said, “I accept that the issue of female ordination is closed for my lifetime—and probably for several lifetimes to come.” “No, Aldo,” replied Sabbadin firmly, “it is closed for all time. It has been decreed on papal authority: the principle of an exclusively male priesthood is founded on the written word of God—”

‘Set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium’—yes, I know the ruling. Not perhaps the wisest of St. John Paul’s many declarations, but there it is. No, of course I am not proposing female ordination. But there is nothing to stop us bringing women into the Curia at the highest levels. The work is administrative, not sacerdotal. The late Holy Father often spoke of it.”

"Not perhaps the wisest of St. John Paul's many declarations" whatt?? such atrocious

“True, but he never actually did it. How can a woman instruct a bishop, let alone select a bishop, when she isn’t even allowed to celebrate Communion? The College will see it as ordination by the back door.”

“Listen to me, my brothers, please. Let me be absolutely clear. I do not seek the papacy. I dread it. Therefore I have no intention of concealing my views or pretending to be anything other than I am. I urge you—I plead with you—not to canvass on my behalf. Not a word. Is that understood? Now, I am afraid I have lost my appetite, and if you will excuse me, I shall retire to my room.”

Then why do you bother want votes in the first place??? If this truly happened in actual Conclave i would like Cardinal Tedesco to be the Pope! Bring back TRADITIONALISM!!!

Lomeli looked up from his plate. “I take it then you don’t believe our friend is sincere when he says he doesn’t want to be Pope.” “Oh, he’s perfectly sincere—that’s one of the reasons I support him. The men who are dangerous—the men who must be stopped—are the ones who actively desire it.”

The Canadian was standing in the corner holding a cup and saucer and listening to the Archbishop of Colombo, Asanka Rajapakse, by common consent one of the great bores of the Conclave.

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

If someone were to ask me what the liturgical life begins with, I should answer: with learning stillness…That attentive stillness in which God’s word can take root. This must be established before the service begins, if possible in the silence on the way to church, still better in a brief period of composure the evening before.

He saved others; himself he cannot save—

My body is clay, my good fame a vapour, my end is ashes.

Lord, who hast said, My yoke is easy and My burden is light, grant that I may so bear it as to attain Thy grace. Amen.

Eternal Trinity, I intend by Your grace to celebrate Mass to Your glory, and for the benefit of all, both living and dead, for whom Christ died, and to apply the ministerial fruit for the choosing of a new Pope…

“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti…”

“Pa-a-x vob-i-is.”

“Et cum spiritu tuo.”

(The spirit of the Lord has been given to me).

(The body grows until it has built itself up, in love).

To some, his gift was that they should be apostles; to some, prophets; to some, evangelists; to some, pastors and teachers…

…so that the saints together make a unity in the work of service, building up the body of Christ…

Here and there he registered the leading contenders—Bellini, Tedesco, Adeyemi, Tremblay—sitting far apart from one another, each preoccupied with his own thoughts, and it struck him what an imperfect, arbitrary, man-made instrument the Conclave was. It had no basis in Holy Scripture whatsoever. There was nothing in the reading to say that God had created cardinals. Where did they fit into St. Paul’s picture of His Church as a living body?

Sola Scriptura nonsense!!!

…If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength…

(I chose you, and I commissioned you to bear fruit).

“Now we must ask our Lord to send us a new Holy Father through the pastoral solicitude of the cardinal fathers. And in this hour we must remember first of all the faith and the promise of Jesus Christ, when He said to the one He had chosen: ‘You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’

“To this very day the symbol of papal authority remains a pair of keys. But to whom are these keys to be entrusted? It is the most solemn and sacred responsibility that any of us will ever be called upon to exercise in our entire lives, and we must pray to God for that loving assistance He always reserves for His Holy Church and ask Him to guide us to the right choice.”

“About thirty years after Jesus entrusted the keys of His Church to St. Peter, St. Paul the Apostle came here to Rome. He had been preaching around the Mediterranean, laying the foundations of our Mother the Church, and when he came to this city he was thrown into prison, because the authorities were frightened of him—as far as they were concerned, he was a revolutionary. And like a revolutionary, he continued to organise, even from his cell. In the year AD 62 or 63, he sent one of his ministers, Tychicus, back to Ephesus, where he’d lived for three years, to deliver that remarkable letter to the faithful, part of which we listened to just now.

“Let us contemplate what we’ve just heard. Paul tells the Ephesians—who were, let us remember, a mixture of Gentiles and Jews—that God’s gift to the Church is its variety: some are created by Him to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and others teachers, who ‘together make a unity in the work of service, building up the body of Christ.’ They make a unity in the work of service. These are different people—one may suppose strong people, with forceful personalities, unafraid of persecution—serving the Church in their different ways: it is the work of service that brings them together and makes the Church. God could, after all, have created a single archetype to serve Him. Instead, He created what a naturalist might call a whole ecosystem of mystics and dreamers and practical builders—managers, even—with different strengths and impulses, and from these He fashioned the body of Christ.”

“In the second part of the reading, we heard Paul reinforcing this image of the Church as a living body. ‘If we live by the truth and in love,’ he says, ‘we shall grow in all ways into Christ, who is the head by whom the whole body is joined and fitted together.’ Hands are hands, just as feet are feet, and they serve the Lord in their different ways. In other words, we should have no fear of diversity, because it is this variety that gives our Church its strength. And then, says Paul, when we have achieved completeness in truth and love, ‘we shall not be children any longer, or tossed one way and another and carried along by every wind of doctrine, at the mercy of all the tricks men play and their cleverness in deceit.’

“I take this idea of the body and the head to be a beautiful metaphor for collective wisdom: of a religious community working together to grow into Christ. To work together, and grow together, we must be tolerant, because all of the body’s limbs are needed. No one person or faction should seek to dominate another. ‘Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,’ Paul urges the faithful elsewhere in that same letter.

“My brothers and sisters, in the course of a long life in the service of our Mother the Church, let me tell you that the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainty is the great ene...

Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.

“Let us pray that the Lord will grant us a Pope who doubts, and by his doubts continues to make the Catholic faith a living thing that may inspire the whole world. Let Him grant us a Pope who sins, and asks forgiveness, and carries on. We ask this of the Lord, through the intercession of Mary most holy, Queen of the Apostles, and of all the martyrs and saints, who through the course of history made this Church of Rome glorious through the ages. Amen.”

He felt closer to God than he had for many months—closer perhaps than he had ever felt before in his life. He closed his eyes and prayed. O Lord, I hope my words have served Your purpose, and I thank You for granting me the courage to say what was in my heart, and the mental and physical strength to deliver it.

As he passed, Tedesco said sharply, “My goodness, that was a novel interpretation of Ephesians, Dean—to portray St. Paul as an Apostle of Doubt! I’ve never heard that one before!” He swung round, determined to have an argument. “Did he not also write to the Corinthians, ‘For if the trumpet give forth an uncertain note, who shall prepare himself to the battle?’

Sister Agnes of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, a tiny Frenchwoman in her late sixties. Her face was sharp and fine, her eyes a crystalline blue. One of her distant aristocratic forebears had been a member of the order during the French Revolution and had been guillotined in the marketplace for refusing to swear an oath to the new regime.

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.”