Lomeli's crisis of faith

Lomeli's crisis of faith is a struggle to distinguish service to God from loyalty to the Church as an institution. It begins in the contrast between the rituals he continues to perform and the conviction he no longer feels, sharpens when Joshua Adeyemi names that contradiction, and reaches a turning point when Lomeli concludes that prayer has already supplied signs he must act upon. His doubt does not resolve into certainty; instead, it makes discernment and responsibility inseparable.

Ritual and inward estrangement

At morning, Lomeli kneels at the prie-dieu, recites his rosary, and asks Christ for wisdom and guidance. As he dresses, he follows the prayers assigned to each vestment, including the prayer for protection and chastity as he knots the cincture. But the words come mechanically, with no more feeling than a telephone number. The ritual continues; the inward response that should animate it seems absent.

That division becomes visible in the mirror. Seeing himself in choir dress, Lomeli recognizes a widening chasm between the figure his office presents and the man he knows himself to be. The image makes his crisis more than a general anxiety about the election: the public signs of religious authority remain intact while his private experience no longer matches them.

The accusation behind the difficulty of prayer

At dinner, while the cardinals gradually reconcile themselves to the likelihood that they will not see another Italian Pope in their lifetimes, Lomeli remains absorbed by his exchange with Adeyemi. He cannot put aside the charge at its centre: that he has spent thirty years worshipping the Church rather than God. In his heart he cannot escape what he sees as the truth of the accusation, or its implication that he has sinned. The difficulty of prayer now has a name and a cause.

The recognition recalls an earlier epiphany in Saint Peter’s, where Lomeli had been waiting to deliver his sermon. Its recurrence matters: his realization is not an isolated response to one conversation but a thought that has surfaced in more than one setting and now presses itself upon him again. Unable to remain at the table, he apologizes for being dull company and goes to bed.

Prayer becomes a question of responsibility

For hours Lomeli lies fully dressed, turning over a pass key Sister Agnes had lent him after he locked himself out of his room. He prays and talks to himself until the two become a single monologue. His questions concern his charge over the conclave: whether he must merely arrange his colleagues’ deliberations or intervene in their outcome. He affirms that he is God’s servant and hopes the Holy Spirit will lead the electors to a worthy pontiff, but an answer intrudes upon that hope: he must guide himself.

Lomeli does not expect a flash of insight or a sudden gift of certainty. He believes God has already sent the signs he needs, and that acting on them is now his responsibility. The pass key, which he had kept rather than returned, becomes part of this recognition: his hesitation has not prevented him from preserving the means to act. He rises and opens the door for a third time, converting prolonged prayer into a decision to move.

Faith tested by law and institutional duty

The crisis unfolds amid disputes over whether the Church’s formal procedures are adequate to the moral and political pressures confronting it. When William Mandorff questions the legitimacy of Vincent Benítez’s appointment, Lomeli argues that the revised canon law and paragraph thirty-nine of the Apostolic Constitution permit a cardinal-elector who arrives before a new Pope is elected to join the conclave at the stage it has reached. He insists that Benítez is legally a cardinal. Here, duty to the late Pope’s wishes is not simply a private religious feeling: Lomeli grounds it in the law governing the election.

The ballot ritual likewise joins procedure to conscience. Lomeli explains that each elector must bring a folded ballot to the altar, swear that the vote is given to the person he believes should be elected before God, and deposit it according to the prescribed rite. The oath does not remove the burden of judgment; it makes the elector answerable for it. Lomeli’s faith crisis therefore plays out inside the very rules and ceremonies that structure the conclave, not outside them.

The same tension becomes acute after bombs explode in Rome while the conclave is still underway. Lomeli sees the danger of prolonging a leadership vacuum, but also the danger of accelerating the vote in violation of the Apostolic Constitution and electing a Pope whose legitimacy could be challenged. Rather than treat urgency as permission to set procedure aside, he seeks authority to inform the assembled cardinals under the constitution’s provisions for special circumstances. He then puts the question to a vote, and the majority agrees to receive the information. His response shows the practical form his discernment takes: he acts decisively, but through a lawful process.

From institutional devotion to discernment

Lomeli’s doubts are reinforced by Bellini’s account of the late Pope’s conflict with the Curia. The Pope had rejected full regalia and chosen to live at Casa Santa Marta rather than the Apostolic Palace; he demanded financial transparency, receipts, and outside tenders, then brought accountants and management consultants into offices at Casa Santa Marta to examine the records. Leaks and embarrassment followed, while opposition from Tedesco’s faction further isolated him. Bellini describes a pontificate in which the Pope’s popularity outside the Holy See coincided with growing distrust within it. The account gives Lomeli a concrete institutional setting for his question: whether the Church he has served can be confused with God.

The crisis is thus neither a simple abandonment of faith nor a settled rejection of the Church. Lomeli continues to pray, invokes divine guidance, defends canon law, and accepts the responsibility of presiding over the conclave. What changes is his understanding of obedience. Entrusting the outcome to the Holy Spirit does not, in his view, excuse him from acting on the signs he has received. His faith remains uncertain, but that uncertainty becomes a demand for conscientious judgment rather than an excuse for withdrawal.