Cardinal Bellini

Cardinal Bellini is the leading liberal candidate in the papal election and one of Jacopo Baldassare Lomeli’s oldest friends. A former rector of the Gregorian University and Archbishop of Milan, he enters the conclave with a substantial following and a program of greater autonomy for bishops. As his own prospects weaken, Bellini becomes a confidant and steadying ally to Lomeli, helping him navigate the conflict between personal reluctance, electoral rules, and responsibility for choosing a pope. Bellini does not win; his clearest success is helping the election proceed with legitimacy and ending its rivalries in a spirit of reconciliation.

Identity and Political Position

Bellini has long been regarded as the intellectual hope of the liberal cardinals. He previously served as rector of the Gregorian University and Archbishop of Milan, and in the conclave his supporters include Italian cardinals and other electors receptive to reform. His stated ambition is to give bishops greater autonomy, a position he presents to North American cardinals during the first evening of serious vote-seeking.

The contest is not simply a choice between fixed ideological blocs. While Bellini represents a liberal current, the cardinals’ positions are tested through conversations across regional and political lines. As the first ballot’s results become the basis for calculation, Bellini’s allies assess whether his support can reach the required threshold. His candidacy is among the four considered viable after the first vote, alongside those of Goffredo Tedesco, Joshua Adeyemi, and Joseph Tremblay.

Friendship with Lomeli

Bellini and Lomeli have known one another for decades. Their relationship is both personal and institutional: Lomeli relies on Bellini’s judgment, while Bellini treats Lomeli as a trusted friend rather than merely the dean responsible for managing the election. During an exhausting night in the Sistine Chapel, Lomeli falls asleep and wakes to find Bellini has passed him a note bearing a Gospel passage about a sleeping man caught in a storm. Lomeli replies in writing with a verse from Psalm 3, and Bellini nods at the answer. The brief exchange turns a moment of public fatigue into a private recognition between old colleagues.

As the voting continues, Bellini and the Patriarch of Alexandria try to catch Lomeli’s eye, but Lomeli remains outwardly impassive and absorbed in the decision before him. Bellini’s presence is not an attempt to force a choice. Rather, the friendship gives Lomeli a point of human contact while he confronts the burden of deciding whom to support and what responsibility he bears for the direction of the conclave.

The Struggle over the Election

Bellini’s own electoral position weakens as the rival campaigns gather support. He is still a candidate after the first ballot, but the arithmetic of the conclave increasingly makes his election doubtful. Lomeli eventually judges that continuing to vote for Bellini would be self-indulgent: as dean, he believes he has helped remove obstacles to Tedesco’s advance, yet remains convinced that Tedesco must be stopped. Bellini’s candidacy therefore becomes part of the dilemma Lomeli must resolve, rather than a simple alternative he can support without regard to consequences.

When Lomeli receives news of a serious event beyond the Holy See and decides to disclose it to the electors, Bellini backs his right to speak. Before Lomeli addresses the assembled cardinals, he asks Bellini whether announcing what has happened is the right course. Bellini does not claim certainty; he says Lomeli must judge and promises his support whatever the decision. Later, when Tedesco argues that news from outside may interfere with the electors’ discernment, Bellini stands and says that the seriousness of Lomeli’s manner makes him want to know what has occurred. His intervention helps turn the room toward hearing the matter rather than silencing the dean.

Bellini also insists that the emergency must not displace the election’s rules. After a confrontation over violence and the Church’s response, he argues that the cardinals have been gathered to choose a pope, not to remain in discussion, and that they should return to voting in accordance with the Apostolic Constitution. He proposes ending lunch and going immediately back to the Sistine Chapel. Lomeli confirms that the rules permit the next ballot, and the proposal receives an overwhelming show of hands; only Tedesco votes against it. Bellini’s contribution is thus both political and procedural: he helps restore the conclave’s central task while grounding the urgency in its formal legitimacy.

From Candidate to Kingmaker

By the eighth ballot, Lomeli has decided not to vote for himself and no longer regards Bellini as a viable choice. He writes Benítez’s name, although only days earlier he had neither known the man was a cardinal nor met him. Bellini’s own support for the eventual pope is later revealed to have been consistent: when Benítez is elected, he tells Lomeli that he voted for him in every ballot. The disclosure shows that Bellini had recognized Benítez as a possible answer even as Lomeli was still weighing the choice.

Before the decisive ballot, Bellini has already told Lomeli to prepare himself: by the end of the afternoon, he predicts, Lomeli will be pope. The prediction does not come true, but it exposes Bellini’s awareness that the dean himself has become a potential focus of the election. His warning also anticipates the pressure Lomeli feels as votes accumulate and as he struggles to separate duty from personal fear of the office.

After Benítez is elected and takes the name Pope Innocent XIV, Bellini is among those before whom the new pope kneels in greeting. Benítez tells Lomeli that he had voted for him in every ballot, says that he will need his advice, and asks him to remain dean. Lomeli cautions him against making promises of office before the formalities are complete. The exchange places Bellini’s loyalty within a broader transfer of trust: the newly elected pope asks Lomeli to continue serving, while Bellini’s role has helped make that transition possible without turning the result into a contest for appointments.

Financial Reform and the Late Pope’s Pontificate

Bellini gives Lomeli an account of the late Pope’s conflict with the Roman Curia, describing a pontificate shaped by demands for transparency. From the beginning, the Pope refused the full regalia of office and chose to live at Casa Santa Marta rather than the Apostolic Palace. At an early meeting with congregation prefects, he demanded proper financial books, disclosure of accounts, outside tenders for building work, and receipts. He then brought in accountants and management consultants to examine the files, establishing their offices on the first floor of Casa Santa Marta.

The reform effort intensified resistance. Bellini recalls that leaks repeatedly exposed financial embarrassment, including claims that associates such as Tutino had diverted funds intended for the poor to renovate apartments or pay for first-class flights. At the same time, Tedesco and his allies attacked the Pope over comments concerning gay people, divorced couples, and the promotion of women. Bellini describes the resulting paradox: the more popular the Pope became beyond the Vatican, the more isolated he grew within it. By the end of his pontificate, Bellini was unsure whether the Pope trusted even him.

That history is given material form by documents hidden in the late Pope’s bed. Among the papers are property records listing the area of apartments held by senior churchmen, including Bellini’s 410 square metres, and a report estimating the APSA property portfolio at 347,532 square metres. The report places its potential value above €2.7 billion but its recorded book value at €389.6 million, and estimates paid occupancy at only 56 percent. The figures support the late Pope’s suspicion that much of the income was not being properly declared. Bellini’s account of financial scrutiny therefore connects a personal history of institutional isolation to a concrete investigation into Church property and accountability.

Election and Reconciliation

Once Benítez is elected, the cardinals applaud his choice of the name Innocent XIV. Bellini kneels before him with the other electors, and the new pope rises from his seat to greet them individually rather than receive the traditional pledges of obedience while seated on the papal throne. He embraces Bellini, as well as Tedesco, Adeyemi, and Tremblay, offering each comfort and support. The gesture signals that the election will not be followed by reprisals against former rivals.

Bellini’s trajectory moves from candidate, through the weakening of his own campaign, to ally in the election of another man. He does not control the result, but his actions help preserve the conditions in which it can be accepted: he supports Lomeli’s disclosure, urges a return to voting under the rules, and backs the newly elected pope’s effort to gather opponents into a common future. In a conclave organized around calculation and competing factions, Bellini’s friendship with Lomeli and his public support for a lawful, reconciliatory outcome give his candidacy a significance that outlasts its failure.