The Vacant Throne

The death of the late Pope turns private grief into a contested succession and places Lomeli in charge of an election he never expected to manage.

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A Midnight Summons

A Midnight Summons Grief and foreboding Jacopo Baldassare Lomeli hurries to Casa Santa Marta praying that the late Pope will be spared. The ambulance waiting outside makes him fear that the call concerns a body rather than a sick man. The dean arrives Inside, the senior cardinals gather around the deathbed. Lomeli’s private sorrow is already shadowed by the duties that follow a Pope’s death.

Sede Vacante

Sede Vacante The ring is broken After the prayers, Joseph Tremblay cuts the seal from the late Pope’s Fisherman’s Ring and declares the throne vacant. A sacred office becomes, at once, an institutional problem. First signs of rivalry Tremblay has delayed informing Lomeli and prepared a timeline for the public. Lomeli recognizes that managing the succession will require diplomacy as well as ritual.

A College Assembles

A College Assembles Arrival under guard The cardinal-electors arrive at Casa Santa Marta from around the world, carrying their luggage into a city ringed by police and protest. Their different national and theological allegiances are visible before voting starts. A fragile common purpose Lomeli welcomes them as brothers while privately measuring rival blocs. His task is not to choose a Pope but to keep a divided College capable of choosing one.

The Chapel Is Sealed

The Chapel Is Sealed Ritual and restriction In the Sistine Chapel, the electors swear secrecy and hear the command Extra omnes. Officials and observers depart, leaving the cardinals isolated beneath Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. A test of authority Lomeli must guide a solemn procedure whose rules allow no easy accommodation to uncertainty. The closed doors make both the sacred ritual and its political stakes unmistakable.

The Eighth Ballot

The Eighth Ballot A choice under pressure After the attacks, Vincent Benítez urges the electors to unite behind Lomeli. The College instead returns to the Sistine Chapel and votes according to its established rules. A new Pope Benítez wins with ninety-two votes. He accepts election and chooses the name Innocent XIV, while Lomeli discovers that the new Pope’s hidden medical history complicates the apparent resolution.

Shortly before two in the morning, October 19

The minutes following the late Pope’s death

November 7, on the afternoon before voting begins

November 7, late afternoon

The afternoon of the third day, after coordinated attacks in Europe