Several cardinals groaned.
‘Simultaneous with this attack, two gunmen entered the church of San Marco Evangelista and opened fire on the congregation while Mass was being celebrated – indeed, prayers were being said at that very moment for the welfare of this Conclave. Security forces were nearby, and both attackers are reported to have been shot dead.
‘At eleven thirty – that is, ten minutes later – there was an explosion in the library of the Catholic University of Louvain . . .’
Cardinal Vandroogenbroek, who had been professor of theology at Louvain, cried out, ‘Oh God, no!’
‘. . . and an armed man also opened fire inside the Frauenkirche in Munich. That incident seems to have turned into a siege and the building has been surrounded.
‘Information on casualties is still being assessed, but the latest figures appear to be as follows: thirty-eight dead in the Piazza del Risorgimento, twelve dead in San Marco, four at the university in Belgium and at least two in Munich. Those figures I fear are very likely to rise. The wounded must be numbered in the hundreds.’
He lowered the paper.
‘That is all the information I have. Let us stand, my brothers, and observe a minute’s silence for those who have been killed and injured.’
*
After it was all over, it was to be obvious, to theologians and canon lawyers alike, that the rules under which the Conclave operated, Universi Dominici Gregis – ‘The Lord’s Whole Flock’ – issued by Pope John Paul II in 1996, belonged to a more innocent age. Five years before 9/11, neither the pontiff nor his advisers had envisaged the contingency of a multiple terrorist attack.
But to the cardinals gathered in the Casa Santa Marta at lunchtime on the third day of the Conclave, nothing was obvious. After the minute’s silence ended, conversations – hushed, shocked, disbelieving – slowly broke out around the dining hall. How were they to continue with their deliberations after what had occurred? But equally, how were they to stop? Most of the cardinals had sat down immediately after the silence, but some remained standing. Among them were Lomeli and Tedesco. The Patriarch of Venice was peering around him, frowning, evidently unsure of what he should do. If just three of his supporters deserted him, he would lose his blocking third in the electoral college. For the first time, he appeared less than fully confident.
On the far side of the room, Lomeli saw Benítez tentatively raise his hand.
‘Your Eminence, I wish to say something.’
The cardinals seated nearest him, Mendoza and Ramos of the Philippines, were calling for quiet so that he could be heard.
Lomeli announced, ‘Cardinal Benítez wishes to speak.’
Tedesco flapped his arms in dismay. ‘Really, Dean, this cannot be allowed to turn into a general congregation – that phase is over.’
‘I think if one of our brothers desires to talk to us, it should be allowed.’
‘But under what provision of the constitution is this permitted?’
‘Under what provision is it forbidden?’
‘Your Eminence, I will be heard!’ It was the first time Lomeli had heard Benítez raise his voice. The high-pitched tone cut through the murmur of conversation. Tedesco gave an exaggerated shrug and rolled his eyes at his supporters, as if to say that the whole thing had become ridiculous. Nevertheless, he made no further protest. A hush settled over the room. ‘Thank you, my brothers. I shall be brief.’ The Filipino’s hands were shaking slightly. He transferred them behind his back and clasped them. His voice was soft again. ‘I know nothing of the etiquette of the College, so forgive me. But perhaps for the very reason that I am your newest colleague, I feel I must say something on behalf of those millions outside these walls at this moment who will be looking to the Vatican for leadership. We are all good men, I believe – all of us, are we not?’ He sought out Adeyemi and Tremblay and nodded to them, and also to Tedesco and Lomeli. ‘Our petty ambitions and follies and disagreements vanish to nothing beside the evil that has been visited upon our Mother the Church.’
Several cardinals murmured in agreement.
‘If I dare to speak out, it is only because two dozen of you have been good enough, and I would say foolish enough, to cast your ballots in my favour. My brothers, I believe we will not be forgiven if we go on with this election, day after day, until such time as the rules permit us to elect a Pope by a simple majority. After the last ballot we have an obvious leader, and I would urge us to unite behind him this afternoon. Therefore, for my part, I would ask that all those who have voted for me should transfer their support to our dean, Cardinal Lomeli, and that when we return to the Sistine we should elect him Pope. Thank you. Forgive me. That is all I wish to say.’
Before Lomeli could reply, Tedesco interrupted him.
‘Oh no!’ He shook his head. ‘No, no, no!’ He started waving his fat, short-fingered hands again, smiling desperately in his alarm. ‘Now, you see, this is exactly what I warned you against, gentlemen! God has been forgotten in the heat of the moment and we are reacting to the pressure of events as if we represented nothing more sacred than a political convention. The Holy Spirit is not biddable, to be summoned at will, like a waiter! Brothers, I beg you, remember that we swear an oath to God to elect the one we believe is best fitted to be Pope, not the one we can most easily push out on to the balcony of St Peter’s this afternoon to calm the crowd!’
If Tedesco had been able to stop himself there, Lomeli reflected afterwards, he might have swayed the meeting to his view, which was entirely legitimate. But he was not a man who could ever stop himself once launched upon a theme – that was his glory and his tragedy; that was why his supporters loved him and why they had also persuaded him to stay away from Rome in the days before the Conclave. He was like the man in Christ’s sermon: out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks – regardless of whether that heart’s abundance be good or bad, wise or foolish.
‘And in any case,’ Tedesco said, gesturing to Lomeli, ‘is the dean the best man for this crisis?’ He flashed that awful smile again. ‘I revere him as a brother and as a friend, but he is not a pastor – he is not a man to heal the broken-hearted and bind up their wounds, let alone to sound the trumpet. Insofar as he has any doctrinal positions to speak of, they are the very ones that have brought us to our present pass of drift and relativism, where all faiths and passing fancies are accorded equal weight – so that now, when we look around us, we see the homeland of the Holy Roman Catholic Church dotted with the mosques and minarets of Muhammad.’
Someone – it was Bellini, Lomeli realised – shouted out, ‘Disgraceful!’
Tedesco wheeled on him – goaded, like a bull. His face blazed red with anger. ‘“Disgraceful,” says the former Secretary of State. It is a disgrace, I agree. Imagine the blood of the innocents in the Piazza del Risorgimento or the church of San Marco this morning! Do you think we are not ourselves in some part responsible? We tolerate Islam in our land, but they revile us in theirs; we nourish them in our homelands, but they exterminate us in theirs, by the tens of thousands and, yea, by the hundreds of thousands – it is the unspoken genocide of our time. And now they are literally at our walls and we do nothing! How long will we persist in our weakness?’
Even Krasinski tried to reach up a restraining hand, but Tedesco brushed him aside.
‘No, there are things that have needed saying in this Conclave, and now they must be said. My brothers, each time we file into the Sistine Chapel to vote, we pass, in the Sala Regia, a fresco of the Battle of Lepanto – I looked at it this morning – where the naval forces of Christendom, drawn together by the diplomacy of His Holiness Pope Pius V, and blessed by the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary, defeated the galleys of the Ottoman Empire and saved the Mediterranean from slavery at the hands of the forces of Islam.
‘We need some fraction of that leadership today. We need to hold fast to our values as the Islamists hold fast to theirs. We need to put a stop to the drift that has gone on alm
ost ceaselessly for the past fifty years, ever since the Second Vatican Council, and that has rendered us weak in the face of evil. Cardinal Benítez speaks of the millions beyond the walls looking to us in these terrible hours for guidance. I agree with him. The most sacred task that ever arises within our Mother Church – the bestowing of the Keys of St Peter – has been disrupted by violence in Rome itself. The moment of supreme crisis has come upon us, as foretold by our Lord Jesus Christ, and we must at long last find the strength to rise to meet it: And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in great perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.’
When he had finished, he crossed himself and bowed his head, then sat down quickly. He was breathing heavily. The ensuing silence seemed to Lomeli to go on for a very long time and was only broken by the gentle voice of Benítez. ‘But my dear Patriarch of Venice, you forget I am the Archbishop of Baghdad. There were one and a half million Christians in Iraq before the Americans attacked, and now there are one hundred and fifty thousand. My own diocese is almost empty. So much for the power of the sword! I have seen our holy places bombed and our brothers and sisters laid out dead in lines – in the Middle East and in Africa. I have comforted them in their distress and I have buried them, and I can tell you that not one of them – not one – would have wished to see violence met by violence. They died in the love of, and for the love of, our Lord Jesus Christ.’
A group of cardinals – Ramos, Martinez and Xalxo among them – clapped loudly in agreement. Gradually the applause spread across the room, from Asia through Africa and the Americas to Italy itself. Tedesco glanced around him in surprise and shook his head sorrowfully – whether in regret at their folly, or realisation of his own, or both, it was impossible to tell.
Bellini stood. ‘My brothers, the Patriarch of Venice is right in one aspect, at least. We are no longer meeting as a congregation. We were sent here to choose a Pope, and that is what we should do – in strict accordance with the Apostolic Constitution, so there can be no doubt of the legitimacy of the man we elect, but also as a matter of urgency, and in the hope that the Holy Spirit will manifest itself in our hour of need. I propose therefore that we abandon lunch – I’m sure none of us has much appetite in any case – and return at once to the Sistine Chapel and resume voting. I don’t believe that is in violation of the sacred statutes, is it, Dean?’
‘No, not at all.’ Lomeli seized the lifeline his old colleague had thrown him. ‘The rules merely specify that two ballots must be held this afternoon if necessary, and that if we fail to reach a decision, tomorrow must be set aside for meditation.’ He scanned the room. ‘Is Cardinal Bellini’s proposal, that we should return to the Sistine immediately, acceptable to a majority of the Conclave? Will all those in favour please show?’ A scarlet forest of arms sprang up. ‘And those against?’ Only Tedesco raised his hand, although he looked in the other direction as he did it, as if to dissociate himself from the whole business. ‘The will of the Conclave is clear. Monsignor O’Malley, will you make sure the drivers are ready? And Father Zanetti, will you please inform the press office that the Conclave is about to hold its eighth ballot?’
As the meeting dispersed, Bellini whispered in Lomeli’s ear, ‘Prepare yourself, my friend. By the end of this afternoon, you will be Pope.’
18
The Eighth Ballot
IN THE EVENT, most of the buses were not needed. Some spontaneous, collective impulse seized the Conclave, and those cardinals who were sufficiently able-bodied to walk elected to travel on foot from the Casa Santa Marta to the Sistine Chapel. They marched in a phalanx, some linking arms, as if they were staging a demonstration, which in a sense they were.
And by a stroke of providence – or divine intervention – a helicopter hired on a pooled basis by several television news companies was at that moment hovering above the Piazza del Risorgimento, filming the blast damage. The airspace of the Vatican City was closed, but the cameraman, using a long lens, was able to film the cardinals as they processed across the Piazza Santa Marta, past the Palazzo San Carlo and the Palazzo del Tribunale, past the church of Santo Stefano and along the edge of the Vatican Gardens before they disappeared into the courtyards within the complex of the Apostolic Palace.
The shaky images of the scarlet-clad figures, broadcast live around the world and repeated endlessly throughout the day, put a little heart back into the Catholic faithful. The pictures conveyed a sense of purpose, of unity and defiance. Subliminally they also suggested that very soon there would be a new Pope. From all over Rome, pilgrims began to make their way to St Peter’s Square in anticipation of an announcement. Within an hour, a hundred thousand had gathered.
All this, of course, Lomeli only discovered afterwards. For now, he walked in the centre of the group, one hand clasping that of the Archbishop of Genoa, De Luca, the other holding on to Löwenstein. His face was raised to the pale light of the sky. Behind him, faintly at first, Adeyemi began singing the Veni Creator in his magnificent voice, and soon it was taken up by them all:
Far from us drive our deadly foe;
True peace unto us bring;
And through all perils lead us safe
Beneath Your sacred wing . . .
As Lomeli sang, he gave thanks to God. In this hour of deadly trial, in the unlikely setting of this cobbled courtyard, with nothing more elevating for the Conclave to contemplate than bare brick, he could at last sense the Holy Spirit moving among them. For the first time, he felt at peace with the outcome. Should the lot fall to him, so be it. Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine, be done.
Still singing, they climbed the steps to the Sala Regia. As they crossed the marble floor, Lomeli glanced up at Vasari’s vast fresco of the Battle of Lepanto. As ever, his attention was drawn to the lower right-hand corner, where a crudely grotesque representation of Death as a skeleton wielded a scythe. Behind Death, the rival fleets of Christendom and Islam were drawn up for battle. He wondered if Tedesco would ever again be able to bear to look at it. The waters of Lepanto had surely swallowed his hopes of the papacy as completely as they had the galleys of the Ottoman Empire.
In the vestibule of the Sistine, the broken glass had been removed. Sheets of timber were stacked ready to board up the windows. The cardinals filed in pairs up the ramp, through the screen, along the carpeted aisle, and then dispersed to find their places behind the desks. Lomeli walked to where the microphone was set up beside the altar and waited until the Conclave was assembled. His mind was entirely clear and receptive to God’s presence. The seed of eternity is within me. With its aid I can step out of the endless chase; I can dismiss everything that does not belong here in God’s house; I can grow still and whole so that I can honestly reply to His summons: ‘Here I am, Lord.’
When the cardinals were all in position, he nodded to Mandorff, who was standing at the back of the chapel. The archbishop’s bald dome dipped in return, and he and O’Malley, followed by the masters of ceremonies, left the chapel. The key turned in the lock.
Lomeli began the roll call. ‘Cardinal Adeyemi?’
‘Present.’
‘Cardinal Alatas?’
‘Present . . .’
He did not hurry. The recital of the names was an incantation, each one a step closer to God. As he finished, he bowed his head. The Conclave stood.
‘O Father, so that we may guide and watch over Your Church, give to us, Your servants, the blessings of intelligence, truth and peace, so that we may strive to know Your will, and serve You with total dedication. For Christ our Lord . . .’
‘Amen.’
The rituals of the Conclav
e, which three days earlier had felt so strange, were now as familiar to the cardinals as a morning Mass. The scrutineers came forward unbidden and set up the urn and chalice on the altar, while Lomeli stepped down to his desk. He opened his folder, took out his ballot paper, uncapped his pen and stared into the middle distance. For whom should he vote? Not himself – not again; not after what had happened last time. That left only one viable candidate. For a second he held his pen poised above the paper. If he had been told four days ago that on the eighth ballot he would vote for a man whom he had never met, whom he was not then even aware was a cardinal, and who even now was largely a mystery to him, he would have dismissed the notion as a fantasy. But he did it even so. In a firm hand, in capital letters, he wrote: BENÍTEZ, and when he looked at it again, it felt strangely right, so that when he stood and flourished his folded ballot paper for all to see, he was able to make his oath with a clean heart.
‘I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected.’
He placed it on the chalice and tipped it into the urn.
*
While the rest of the Conclave voted, Lomeli occupied himself by reading the Apostolic Constitution. It was among the printed material issued to each cardinal. He wanted to make sure he had the procedure for what was to happen next straight in his head.
Chapter 7, paragraph 87: once a candidate had achieved a two-thirds majority, the Junior Cardinal-Deacon was required to ask for the doors to be unlocked, and Mandorff and O’Malley would come in with the necessary documents. Lomeli, as dean, would ask the victorious candidate, ‘Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?’ As soon as the winner had consented, he was required to ask him, ‘By what name do you wish to be called?’ Then Mandorff, acting as notary, would fill out the certificate of acceptance with the chosen name, and two of the masters of ceremonies would be brought in to act as witnesses.
Conclave Page 24
