The Pope is said to have removed Trump Bre

The alleged dismissal of Cardinal Tremblay is a disputed episode at the heart of the struggle over the papal succession. Archbishop Woźniak tells Cardinal Lomeli that the late Pope dismissed Tremblay from all his Church offices for gross misconduct during their final meeting. Tremblay calls the claim nonsense and denies that it happened. With the Pope dead and no independent confirmation available, the allegation becomes both a question of personal credibility and a danger to the Church if the electors choose a candidate whose history may later provoke scandal.

The report from Woźniak

Woźniak brings the allegation to Lomeli only after hearing rumours that Tremblay may be elected Pope. He says the Pope’s last official appointment on the day he died had been a four o’clock meeting with Tremblay, and that the Pope dismissed Tremblay from every Church office. Woźniak gives the reason as gross misconduct, but cannot say what the misconduct was: the Pope had not explained it, telling him only that the reasons would become clear soon enough. Woźniak remembers the Pope as extremely agitated and angry.

Lomeli objects that the disclosure comes too late. Woźniak could have approached him at any point during the following three weeks, but says he had not begun to hear rumours about Tremblay’s possible election until the last day or two. The change in circumstances makes the information urgent: Woźniak has prayed for guidance, but no longer knows what his duty requires. He leaves the decision about whether to tell the other cardinals to Lomeli, who must judge both the report and its possible consequences.

A contested account of the Pope’s final hours

Woźniak was not present at the meeting between the Pope and Tremblay. He says the Pope told him about the dismissal afterward, when they had supper together. The gap between the reported meeting and the source of Woźniak’s knowledge matters: his account is direct testimony about what the Pope said, but not eyewitness testimony of the alleged dismissal itself.

He explains why he did not raise the matter when the Pope died. Under the procedure he recounts, the doctor summoned Tremblay, the Camerlengo, as the first Curial official to be notified. Tremblay arrived and took control while Woźniak was in shock. About an hour later, Tremblay drew him aside and asked whether the Pope had seemed preoccupied at supper. Woźniak admitted that he had seemed agitated but withheld what he knew about the meeting, afraid that he was not supposed to know of such matters.

Woźniak says he later tried to tell Monsignor Morales what the Pope had said. Morales firmly denied that there had been a dismissal, argued that the Pope had not been himself for several weeks, and told Woźniak not to raise the subject again for the good of the Church. Woźniak also recalls seeing Tremblay whisper with Morales after the Pope’s death and suspects that Tremblay was persuading the monsignor to keep silent. That suspicion remains Woźniak’s inference, not a fact independently established by the account.

The official timeline of the Pope’s final evening supplies a separate, precise chronology but does not settle the dispute. It records supper with Woźniak at 7:30 p.m., the Pope’s retirement to his apartment at 8:30, and his going to bed at 9:30. Woźniak checked on him at 11:30 and found no vital signs; emergency treatment began at 11:34, and the Pope was pronounced dead at 12:12 a.m. The timeline’s detail underscores the effort to establish an uncontested account of the death, while leaving the earlier meeting and alleged dismissal unresolved.

Tremblay’s denial

When Lomeli finally speaks to Tremblay, he raises the report directly: he has been told that the Pope demanded Tremblay’s resignation from all his offices. Tremblay dismisses the allegation as nonsense and identifies Woźniak as its likely source. He describes Woźniak as needing proper treatment after the election and insists that the dismissal never happened.

Tremblay points to Morales as a witness who would confirm his version. Lomeli cannot question Morales because the cardinals are sequestered. Tremblay nevertheless presents the monsignor’s anticipated confirmation as decisive, while Woźniak has already described Morales as denying the dismissal and urging him to keep quiet. The same absent witness is thus invoked by both sides, but only through accounts that conflict; the novel provides no independent resolution at this point.

The allegation’s stakes in the election

Lomeli does not treat Woźniak’s report as proven. He considers the possibility that Woźniak is overwrought, yet also recognizes the risk of electing Tremblay and discovering a scandal afterward. The allegation therefore bears on more than the accuracy of one recollection: it raises the prospect that private information about a leading candidate could later damage the Church’s standing and deepen a crisis during the succession.

Tremblay’s position heightens that risk. He is the Camerlengo and Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, and one of the candidates with an organized faction of supporters. In a contest already shaped by competing candidates and their political constituencies, an unverified account of the late Pope’s decision cannot be cleanly separated from the question of who should inherit authority. Lomeli, as Dean, must decide what the electors should know without being able to establish the charge conclusively.

The episode also recalls the danger of discrepancies in the official account of a Pope’s death. Lomeli warns that errors made in the initial confusion can feed malicious rumours, invoking the long-standing dispute over the circumstances of Pope John Paul I’s death. The concern gives Woźniak’s silence a double edge: withholding the report may protect the institution from an immediate controversy, but allowing contradictory accounts to stand may create the very uncertainty that later fuels scandal.

Unresolved truth and institutional duty

The dismissal remains alleged rather than confirmed. Woźniak is certain of what the Pope told him, Tremblay categorically denies the charge, and Morales is unavailable for questioning during the conclave. The Pope’s reasons, if the dismissal occurred, remain undisclosed. Neither Lomeli’s suspicion nor the competing appeals to the absent witness close those gaps.

What changes is Lomeli’s responsibility. He must weigh the report not as a settled verdict but as consequential information about a candidate, and decide whether duty to the Church requires disclosure despite uncertainty. The episode’s tension lies in the difference between preserving institutional calm and giving electors the facts they may need: either course carries risks, while the person best placed to explain the Pope’s decision is no longer alive.