Romeo advises voters not to vote for himself

Lomeli’s attempt to withdraw from contention is an effort to return support to Aldo Bellini and keep his own name from becoming a viable alternative in a divided election. Yet the first ballot has already given him five votes, and his attempts to renounce them do not remove him from the contest: they become another force within its shifting alliances, interpreted by some as humility and by others as a possible strategy.

The first ballot and an unwanted candidacy

During the first ballot, Lomeli records the votes as they are read, and his own name appears several times. At first he is touched that anyone considers him worthy of the papacy; as the votes accumulate, that feeling turns to alarm. In a field where no candidate is close to the required majority, even a modest tally might draw him into contention.

The completed count makes the problem concrete. Goffredo Tedesco receives 22 votes, Joshua Adeyemi 19, Bellini 18, Joseph Tremblay 16, and Lomeli 5; all other candidates together receive 38. No one is close to the 79 votes needed to win. Lomeli worries that his five votes may have come at Bellini’s expense, weakening the candidate whose lead Bellini’s campaign had expected. His withdrawal begins not as an abstract declaration of modesty but as an attempt to repair a specific electoral disadvantage.

Publicly backing Bellini

At dinner, Lomeli says he will ask his supporters to vote for someone else if he can identify them, and that, if asked whom he supports, he will name Bellini. He distinguishes this personal judgment from campaigning: he says he cannot publicly campaign for Bellini, but believes he has the right to express his view when asked. He calls Bellini the best-qualified candidate to govern the Universal Church.

The distinction matters in a conclave where the Dean’s neutrality is questioned. The Archbishop of Turin asks whether Lomeli is supposed to remain neutral. Lomeli does not claim a right to organize Bellini’s campaign; instead, he presents his endorsement as an answer he may give when asked. Giulio Sabbadin immediately calculates the possible electoral benefit: Lomeli’s five votes could raise Bellini’s total to 23, while the 38 votes dispersed among minor candidates might become available in later ballots. The endorsement is thus both a statement of preference and an opening for coalition-building, though the anticipated transfers are uncertain.

Private pledges and competing interpretations

Before the evening ends, Lomeli speaks individually to the other three leading candidates and repeats that he intends to withdraw. He asks them to tell anyone who mentions his name that he is sincere, and invites doubters to speak with him directly. His stated purpose is to serve the conclave and help it reach the right decision; he says he cannot do that if he is regarded as a contender.

Tremblay challenges the meaning of the gesture. By presenting himself as modest and reluctant, Lomeli could, Tremblay observes, appear all the more attractive to electors; a withdrawal pledge might therefore work as an electoral maneuver even if it is sincere. Lomeli is insulted but does not escalate the exchange by raising the alleged withdrawn report concerning Tremblay’s activities. He simply restates his position and leaves Tremblay to respond as he sees fit. The episode exposes a structural difficulty: in a contest for the papacy, even renouncing ambition can be read as a bid for power.

Lomeli also intercepts Bellini on the stairs and tells him that his small tally may have harmed Bellini’s prospects. Bellini reassures him, saying that support for himself seems to be slipping and that, if the papacy is passing from him, he hopes it passes to Lomeli. He warns that if his own position weakens further, Italian electors who reject Tedesco may rally behind Lomeli as their remaining viable candidate. Bellini’s confidence in his friend therefore places the two men in tension: Lomeli wants to direct votes toward Bellini, while Bellini can see Lomeli becoming the alternative those same voters may choose.

Withdrawal amid the changing vote

The next counts show how quickly support can move without confirming that Lomeli’s pledge has settled the matter. After the second ballot, Adeyemi has gained sixteen votes from candidates who have fallen away, and Tedesco has added seven. Bellini and Tremblay have barely moved; Bellini’s position looks particularly precarious. Lomeli notices, almost as an afterthought, that Vincent Benítez has risen from one vote to two. The scattered first-ballot field is beginning to consolidate, but not simply around the candidate Lomeli has endorsed.

A later ballot brings a dramatic reversal after a break for lunch: Adeyemi loses 32 votes, while Tremblay gains 11, Bellini 8, Lomeli 6, Tedesco 4, and Benítez 3. The collapse follows the spread of news from the dining hall, where cardinals have witnessed or heard of the scene that has damaged Adeyemi’s standing. Lomeli’s own tally grows even as the election’s earlier front-runner falls away, underscoring that his attempt to withdraw cannot dictate where electors’ votes go.

When Bellini later considers continuing to support Lomeli and urging colleagues to do the same, Giulio Sabbadin argues that Lomeli still cannot win. Bellini has 15 votes and Lomeli 12; even a transfer of Bellini’s support would leave Lomeli behind Tremblay and Tedesco. Sabbadin instead calculates that an alliance around Tremblay could bring him to 67, only 12 short of the two-thirds threshold. Bellini accepts the logic despite his reservations, reasoning that if the Holy Spirit is acting through the conclave, the electors must accept that the outcome may be other than their preference. In this later calculation, Lomeli’s earlier declaration for Bellini gives way to the hard arithmetic of a new possible coalition.

The limits and significance of renunciation

Lomeli’s conduct is defined by a genuine effort to make his support available to another candidate, but the story does not treat intention as control. He cannot identify and transfer his five first-ballot votes by command; he can only state whom he favors, ask others to relay his withdrawal, and resist the role of contender. Meanwhile, the voting system keeps producing new alignments, and other cardinals judge the effect of his actions as carefully as the words themselves.

That tension gives the episode its significance in the election’s larger movement. A pledge to withdraw is not an exit from politics when a candidate’s name remains on the ballot and his support may become useful to competing coalitions. Lomeli’s endorsement of Bellini, his private assurances to the leading candidates, and the suspicion those assurances provoke all show how personal conscience and electoral strategy become entangled. His attempt to step aside does not settle the contest; it reveals how little any one elector, even the Dean, can determine the destination of votes once the conclave has begun to reorganize around possible winners.