Conclave

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 Conclave, 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.

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.

The new Pope would then retire to the sacristy known as the Room of Tears to be robed. Meanwhile, the papal throne would be set up in the Sistine. Upon his re-emergence, the cardinal-electors would queue up ‘in the prescribed manner, in order to make an act of homage and obedience’. White smoke would be sent up the chimney. From the balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square, Santini, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education and also the Senior Cardinal-Deacon, would make the announcement, ‘Habemus papam’ – ‘We have a Pope’ – and shortly afterwards the new pontiff would appear before the world.

And if, thought Lomeli – it was almost too momentous a possibility for him to allow his mind to encompass it, but it would be irresponsible for him not to do so – if Bellini’s prediction proved to be correct, and the chalice passed to him, what would happen then?

In that event, it would fall to Bellini, as the next most senior member of the Conclave, to ask him by what name he wished to be known as Pope.

The idea was dizzying.

At the start of the Conclave, when Bellini had accused him of ambition and insisted that every cardinal secretly knew the name they would choose if they were elected, Lomeli had denied it. But now – God forgive him for his dissimulation – he acknowledged to himself that he had always had a name in mind, although he had consciously avoided giving voice to it, even in his head.

He had known what he would be for years.

He would be John.

John in honour of the blessed disciple, and of Pope John XXIII under whose revolutionary pontificate he had grown to manhood; John because it would signal his intention to be a reformer; and John because it was traditionally a name associated with Popes whose reigns were short, as he was certain his was bound to be.

He would be Pope John XXIV.

It had a weight to it. It sounded real.

When he stepped out on to the balcony, his first act would be to give the Apostolic Blessing, Urbi et Orbi – ‘to the City and the World’ – but then he would have to say something more personal, to calm and inspire the watching billions who would be yearning for his lead. He would have to be their shepherd. To his amazement, he realised the prospect did not terrify him. There had come into his head, unbidden, the words of our Saviour Jesus Christ: Do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given you in that hour. Even so, he thought (the bureaucrat in him being never far away), it would be best to make at least some sort of preparation, and so for the final twenty minutes of the balloting, casting his eyes occasionally to the Sistine’s ceiling for inspiration, Lomeli sketched out what he might say as Pope to reassure his Church.

The bell of St Peter’s tolled three times.

The voting was over.

Cardinal Lukša lifted the urn full of ballots from the altar and showed it to both sides of the chapel, then shook it firmly enough for Lomeli to hear the papers inside it stir.

The air had become chilly. Through the broken windows came a strange, soft, immense sound – a murmur, a sigh. The cardinals looked at one another. They couldn’t comprehend it at first. But Lomeli recognised it immediately. It was the noise of tens of thousands assembling in St Peter’s Square.

Lukša held out the urn to Cardinal Newby. The Archbishop of Westminster thrust his hand into it, pulled out a ballot paper, and said loudly, ‘One…’ He turned to the altar and dropped it into the second urn, then swung back to Lukša and repeated the process. ‘Two…’

Cardinal Mercurio, his hands clasped to his chest in prayer, moved his head slightly as he watched each movement.

‘Three…’

Until that moment, Lomeli had felt detached – serene, even. Now each counted ballot seemed to tighten an invisible band strapped around his chest, making it hard for him to breathe. Even when he tried to fill his head with prayer, all he could hear was the steady, inescapable intonation of the numbers. It went on like a water torture until at last Newby plucked out the last ballot paper.

‘One hundred and eighteen.’

In the silence, rising and falling like a giant wave in the distance, came again the low, faint cry of the faithful.

Newby and Mercurio left the altar and went into the Room of Tears. Lukša waited, holding the white cloth. They returned carrying the table. He covered it carefully, caressing the fabric, smoothing it flat, and then from the altar he lifted the urn full of votes and placed it reverentially in the centre. Newby and Mercurio set out the three chairs. Newby collected the microphone from its stand. The trio of scrutineers sat.

Across the Sistine Chapel, the cardinals shifted in their seats and reached for their lists of candidates. Lomeli opened his folder. Without noticing it, he held the tip of his pen poised above his own name.

‘The first ballot is cast for Cardinal Benítez.’

His pen travelled up the column and made a mark against Benítez’s name, then returned to his own. He waited, not looking up.

‘Cardinal Benítez.’

Again his pen traversed the list, made a mark, and returned to its default position.

‘Cardinal Benítez.’

This time, after he had awarded the tick, he looked up. Lukša was feeling for the next ballot paper from deep inside the urn. He pulled it out, unfolded it, noted the name, and passed the paper to Mercurio. The Italian also wrote the name down carefully, then gave the ballot to Newby. Newby read it and leaned across the table to speak into the microphone.

‘Cardinal Benítez.’

The first seven votes were all for Benítez. The eighth was for Lomeli, and when the ninth was as well, he thought that perhaps the early run for Benítez had been one of those flukes of distribution they had seen throughout the Conclave. But then came another spell of Benítez, Benítez, Benítez, and he felt God’s grace draining from him. After a few minutes he started counting up the Filipino’s votes, putting a line through each group of five. Ten lots of five. He had fifty-one… fifty-two… fifty-three…

After that, he no longer bothered with his own tally.

Seventy-five… seventy-six… seventy-seven…

As Benítez approached the threshold that would make him Pope, the air in the Sistine seemed to tauten, as if its molecules were being stretched by some magnetic force. Dozens of other cardinals had their heads bent over their desks and were making the same calculation.

Seventy-eight… seventy-nine… eighty!

There was a great collective exhalation of breath, a half-ovation of hands being tapped on desktops. The scrutineers paused in their counting and looked up to see what was happening. Lomeli leaned out of his seat to peer along the aisle at Benítez. His chin was on his chest. He appeared to be praying.

The counting of the ballot resumed.

‘Cardinal Benítez…’

Lomeli took up the sheet of paper on which he had roughed out the notes for his speech and tore it into tiny fragments.

After the last ballot paper had been read out – as it happened, it had been cast for him – Lomeli sat back in his chair and waited while the scrutineers and revisers went over the official figures. Afterwards, when he tried to describe his emotions to Bellini, 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. ‘That was the Holy Spirit, I suppose. The sensation was terrifying and exhilarating and certainly unforgettable – I am glad to have experienced it – but when it was over, I felt nothing except relief.’ It was the truth, more or less.

Newby said into the microphone, ‘Your Eminences, here is the result of the eighth ballot…’

Out of habit, Lomeli lifted his pen for the final time and wrote down the figures:

Benítez 92

Lomeli 21

Tedesco 5

The end of Newby’s announcement was lost in the outbreak of applause. None clapped more loudly than Lomeli. He looked around him, nodding and smiling. There were a few cheers. Opposite him, Tedesco was bringing his palms together very slowly, as if beating time for a dirge. Lomeli, redoubling his clapping, stood, and it was taken as a signal for the entire Conclave to get to its feet in an ovation. Benítez alone remained seated. With the cardinals at his back and on either side looking down at him, applauding him, he appeared, at his moment of triumph, even smaller and more out of place than before – a tiny figure, head still bowed in prayer, his face obscured by a tumbling lock of black hair just as it had been the first time Lomeli saw him with his rosary in Sister Agnes’s office.

Lomeli went up to the altar, holding his copy of the Apostolic Constitution. Newby handed him the microphone. The clapping died away. The cardinals sat. He noticed that Benítez had not moved. ‘The necessary majority has been achieved. Will the Junior Cardinal-Deacon please summon the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations and the Secretary of the College?’

He waited as Rudgard went into the vestibule and called out for the doors to be opened. A minute later, Mandorff and O’Malley appeared at the back of the chapel. Lomeli stepped down into the aisle and walked towards Benítez. He was conscious of the expressions on the faces of the archbishop and the monsignor. They were standing discreetly just inside the screen and staring at him in astonishment. They must have presumed he would be Pope and were wondering what he was doing. He reached the Filipino and stood before him. He read from the constitution.

‘In the name of the whole College of Cardinals, I ask you, Cardinal Benítez, do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?’

Benítez seemed not to have heard. He did not look up.

‘Do you accept?’

A long silence followed, as more than a hundred men held their breath, and it crossed Lomeli’s mind that he was about to refuse. Dear God, what a disaster that would be! He said quietly, ‘May I quote to you, Your Eminence, the Apostolic Constitution, written by St John Paul II himself? “I ask the one who is elected not to refuse, for fear of its weight, the office to which he has been called, but to submit humbly to the design of the Divine Will. God who imposes the burden will sustain him with his hand, so that he will be able to bear it.” ’

At last Benítez raised his head. His dark eyes contained a glint of resolution. He stood. ‘I accept.’

Spontaneous exclamations of pleasure erupted along both sides of the chapel, followed by more applause. Lomeli smiled, and patted his heart, to indicate his relief. ‘And by what name do you wish to be called?’

Benítez paused, and suddenly Lomeli guessed the reason for his apparent detachment: he had spent the last few minutes trying to decide his papal title. He must have been the only cardinal who had come into the Conclave without having a name in mind.

In a firm voice he said, ‘Innocent.’