September 11 attacks

The September 11 attacks serve as a precedent for the novel’s coordinated terrorist attacks in Europe, which strike while the cardinals are choosing a pope. The crisis turns the conclave’s procedural rules into an immediate dispute: pausing the election might honor the victims but prolong a leadership vacuum, while accelerating it could undermine the new pope’s legitimacy. In retrospect, the attacks also reveal how rules drafted for an apparently more innocent age can fail to anticipate extraordinary events.

A precedent for the unforeseen

The attacks are mentioned retrospectively in an assessment of Universi Dominici Gregis, the constitution governing the conclave. Issued by Pope John Paul II in 1996, five years before September 11, the document had not anticipated the possibility of multiple terrorist attacks. The comparison frames the European attacks not as a routine interruption but as a contingency beyond the rules’ assumptions.

That retrospective judgment contrasts with the cardinals’ uncertainty at the time. Gathered at Casa Santa Marta on the third day of the conclave, they have no settled procedure that answers the central question: how can they respond to mass violence without compromising the election entrusted to them?

The crisis of procedure

After the attacks, Jacopo Baldassare Lomeli weighs the competing costs of suspending the conclave and speeding up the ballots. Suspension would show respect for the victims, but it would extend the Church’s leadership vacuum. Accelerating the vote, however, would breach the Apostolic Constitution and risk electing a pope whose authority could be challenged from the beginning of his pontificate.

Raymond O’Malley argues that the cardinals would understand a departure from the rules. Lomeli resists treating that understanding as sufficient: for him, the legality of the process is itself a condition of the next pope’s ability to govern. The attacks therefore force a distinction between an expedient decision and one that can withstand later scrutiny.

Information and collective authority

Before explaining the attacks to the assembled cardinals, Lomeli asks for the conclave’s authority to discuss the matter. He invokes paragraphs five and six of the Apostolic Constitution, which allow certain problems to be considered in special circumstances if a majority agrees. The response to the emergency thus begins with a vote about whether the emergency may be discussed.

When Lomeli puts that question to the room, scores of cardinals support receiving the information. Goffredo Tedesco and a smaller group oppose it, but the motion carries; no one leaves when Lomeli says that anyone who does not wish to hear may do so. The decision does not resolve whether the conclave should be suspended, but it establishes collective consent as the basis for considering what happened.

Consequences within the conclave

The attacks leave the cardinals suspended between two obligations: attending to the victims and preserving the lawful election of a pope. After a minute of silence, hushed conversations resume in the dining hall, where some cardinals sit and others remain standing. Tedesco, who has been peering around the room, appears less certain than before; the account notes that the defection of only three supporters could cost him his blocking third.

The episode makes procedural legitimacy more than a technical concern. In Lomeli’s assessment, a doubtful election could expose the new pope’s acts to challenge from the first day of his pontificate. The earlier September 11 attacks sharpen that concern by giving the present emergency a historical analogue while underscoring that even a detailed constitution cannot foresee every crisis.