The election of Pope Innocent XIV turns a closed electoral process into a test of institutional judgment. Across successive ballots, the cardinals must decide not only who can command a two-thirds majority but how the conclave should respond to disputed information, the Church’s internal failures, and terrorist attacks beyond its walls. The decisive outcome is the election of Cardinal Benítez, who accepts the office and chooses the name Innocent.

Setting, Rules, and Institutional Strains

The conclave unfolds principally in the Sistine Chapel and the Casa Santa Marta, where the cardinal electors are confined together while voting proceeds. Its decisions are governed by the Apostolic Constitution: the election requires a two-thirds majority, and the rules set limits on how long the cardinals must continue balloting before an alternative voting procedure becomes available. The law is not merely background. Whether a person may participate, whether a question can be put to the assembled cardinals, and what happens when the crisis exceeds the rules’ assumptions all become matters to be decided through procedure.

The opening phase is shadowed by uncertainty about the late Pope’s death and by concern that inconsistent accounts might fuel rumours. The first written timeline says that the Pope ate with Archbishop Woźniak at 7:30 p.m., went to his apartment at 8:30, and retired at 9:30 after reading a passage from The Imitation of Christ. Woźniak checked on him at 11:30 and found no vital signs; a doctor began emergency treatment at 11:34, and the Pope was pronounced dead at 12:12 a.m. Concern that the official account be precise leads Lomeli to propose adding the Pope’s attendance at vespers and preparing a fuller record of the day to keep in reserve. The episode establishes the tension between the need for a coherent public account and the danger that omissions or discrepancies could undermine trust.

That concern about institutional truth reappears when Woźniak later explains that, after finding the Pope dead, he summoned the doctor, who notified Cardinal Tremblay, the Camerlengo. Tremblay took control of the situation; Woźniak, shocked and frightened, did not disclose that the Pope had seemed agitated at supper. He says he later saw Tremblay speaking privately with Monsignor Morales and suspects that Tremblay persuaded him to remain silent about a meeting. The account is presented as Woźniak’s recollection and suspicion, not as proof of what Morales was told. In the conclave, private knowledge and formal responsibility do not always coincide.

Eligibility, Evidence, and the First Ballot

The arrival of a previously unlisted cardinal makes the rules immediately consequential. Monsignor O’Malley tells Lomeli that the newcomer claims to have been created in pectore, or secretly appointed. Though Lomeli initially suspects an impostor, Archbishop Mandorff believes the claim is genuine. Lomeli then defends the man’s right to participate by invoking paragraph thirty-nine of the Apostolic Constitution: a cardinal elector who arrives re integra, before a new pope has been elected, may join the election at whatever stage it has reached. The case shows the constitution functioning not just as a restriction but as a means of admitting a participant whose status was unknown to the other electors.

The first ballot demonstrates how little the factions can assume about the final result. Thirty-four cardinals receive at least one vote, described as a record. Lomeli himself receives five, enough to unsettle him because votes for a candidate outside the expected front-runners might alter the balance between them. The totals are Tedesco 22, Adeyemi 19, Tremblay 16, Bellini 12, Lomeli 5, and 38 for others. Bellini, whose campaign manager had anticipated as many as twenty-five votes and a first-place finish, comes in third. No candidate is close to the 79 votes required for election.

The result changes the meaning of Lomeli’s own candidacy. He worries that his votes may have drawn support away from Bellini and weakened the prospect of a result that could have seemed inevitable. The tally instead reveals a scattered field, in which even the leading candidates have limited support and several could plausibly emerge. The next steps are not simply a continuation of a settled contest: the cardinals must keep voting, with the constitution allowing as many as thirty ballots over twelve days before a simple-majority procedure could be used.

Financial Accountability and the Pope’s Record

The election’s political choices are inseparable from a broader dispute about how the Church is governed. While searching the late Pope’s bed, Lomeli discovers a concealed wooden case inside a bedpost. It contains financial documents, including bank statements, transfers, apartment addresses, and the Pope’s handwritten annotations. One list compares the apartments occupied by senior Church figures: Lomeli’s residence measures 445 square metres, while the Pope’s room at Casa Santa Marta is listed as 50. The document also records the areas associated with Bellini, Adeyemi, and Tremblay.

An attached report estimates the APSA patrimony at 347,532 square metres and more than €2.7 billion in potential value, against a stated book value of €389.6 million. It says that paid occupancy is only 56 percent and that much of the income appears not to be properly reported. These figures make the hidden papers more than a private record: they connect disparities in official property accounting to a question of financial oversight. The evidence Lomeli finds gives material form to suspicions about Curial administration, though the supplied account does not establish the ultimate disposition of the investigation.

Bellini recalls the late Pope’s effort to impose transparency from the beginning of his pontificate. The Pope rejected full regalia and chose to live at Casa Santa Marta rather than the Apostolic Palace. At an introductory meeting with the prefects, he demanded proper books, disclosure of accounts, outside tenders for building work, and receipts. He brought in accountants and management consultants to review files, with their offices on the first floor of Casa Santa Marta. Bellini describes the resulting resistance, leaks, and public embarrassment, as well as attacks from Tedesco’s faction over the Pope’s positions on gay people, divorced couples, and the promotion of women. In Bellini’s account, the Pope’s popularity outside the Vatican grew as his isolation within it deepened; by the end, he trusted few people.

Procedure Under Pressure

The conclave’s formal rules become particularly important after terrorist attacks in Europe. The governing constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis, was issued by Pope John Paul II in 1996, and the narrative observes that its authors had not anticipated a multiple terrorist attack. The cardinals must face a practical dilemma: they have suffered a grave shock, but they are also in the middle of an election whose continuation the rules do not straightforwardly resolve for this contingency.

At the Casa Santa Marta, Lomeli seeks the assembly’s authority before discussing what has happened. He cites paragraphs five and six, which allow certain matters or problems to be discussed in special circumstances if a majority of the assembled cardinals agrees. He then puts the question to a vote: should the conclave receive the information? Scores raise their hands in favour, while Tedesco, Archbishop Krasinski, Tutino, and roughly a dozen others oppose. Lomeli makes clear that anyone who does not wish to hear the information may leave, but no one does. The assembly receives the report and observes a minute of silence for those killed and injured.

The attack also alters the political atmosphere. Tedesco had been concerned to retain the blocking third that could prevent a two-thirds majority, but after the silence he appears less confident. Lomeli sees Benítez tentatively raise his hand. The scene marks a turn from the election’s internal calculations toward a shared response to events outside the conclave, without suggesting that the shock itself determines the eventual vote.

The Eighth Ballot and Election

After the crisis, the cardinals leave Casa Santa Marta on foot for the Sistine Chapel, some linking arms. Their procession passes through the Vatican area as a news helicopter films the damage from the attacks. The movement gives the return to voting a public, collective aspect, even though the electoral decision itself remains inside the chapel. Bellini tells Lomeli that he expects Lomeli to become pope by the end of the afternoon, but the prediction proves wrong.

On the eighth ballot, the announced result gives Benítez 92 votes and Tedesco 5. Lomeli applauds more loudly than anyone else, then stands; the other cardinals rise in an ovation. Benítez remains seated, his head bowed in prayer. Lomeli goes to the altar with his copy of the Apostolic Constitution and formally asks Benítez, on behalf of the College of Cardinals, whether he accepts his canonical election as Supreme Pontiff.

Benítez does not respond at first. Lomeli cites the constitution’s appeal to the elected candidate not to refuse the office for fear of its weight, but to submit to the divine will. Benítez then stands and accepts. Asked what name he wishes to take, he says, “Innocent.” The election concludes not with Lomeli, whom Bellini expected to win, nor with Tedesco, one of the principal contenders, but with the previously unexpected Benítez. The result resolves the contest through the required majority and gives the conclave a new pope, while leaving the institutional questions that shaped the election—transparency, trust, and the limits of procedure—part of the inheritance of his pontificate.