Tranblay Simoni report of dispersion

Lomeli’s distribution of an altered copy of the confidential report on alleged simony by Cardinal Joseph Tremblay brings an internal investigation into the conclave’s collective decision-making. By removing the names of eight cardinals while preserving the report’s allegations, he tries to make the electors confront the evidence without disclosing every person implicated in it. His choice is neither simple secrecy nor unrestricted exposure: it is a deliberate, risky intervention in an election already shaped by competing claims to authority and institutional loyalty.

Background and Decision

The decision follows Lomeli’s discovery of financial records and a report prepared for the late Pope. The report concerns alleged simony by Tremblay, and its contents are serious enough that Lomeli argues the electors should learn of it while the conclave is still meeting, rather than only after a new Pope has been elected. In his view, the remaining time inside the conclave offers a chance to consider the matter in confidence before the decision becomes irreversible.

Bellini sees the danger differently. He objects that the report rests on private bank records taken from the late Pope’s apartment and warns that circulating it could look like an act of desperation, backfire, and harm the Church. Lomeli makes clear that he is not asking Bellini to distribute it: he offers to bear the consequences himself, possibly with Sabbadin’s help. Bellini nevertheless argues that the damage would not stop with Lomeli, and that news of the document would eventually escape. He says he could not accept becoming Pope under such circumstances.

Their disagreement reaches beyond the report’s reliability or the mechanics of disclosure. Bellini describes the late Pope’s pontificate as a struggle for financial transparency, marked from the outset by his refusal of full regalia and his decision to live at Casa Santa Marta rather than the Apostolic Palace. He recalls demands for proper accounts, disclosure, competitive tenders, and receipts, followed by audits conducted by accountants and management consultants. The reforms, he says, provoked resentment and leaks, while criticism from Tedesco and his allies further isolated the Pope within the Holy See. Bellini believes the late Pope’s frailty and illness affected his judgment and urges Lomeli to return or destroy the report. Lomeli’s question about the prospect of Tremblay becoming Pope exposes the consequence he fears if the evidence remains unused.

Preparing the Copies

Before dawn, Lomeli goes to Sister Agnes’s office to reproduce the report. He has not used a photocopier for years, if ever, and his attempt to operate the machine ends with an error message. When Sister Agnes appears, he explains that he needs copies. The original is headed as a report prepared for the late Pope into the alleged offence of simony committed by Cardinal Joseph Tremblay; it is dated 19 October, the day the late Pope died, and marked strictly confidential.

Lomeli asks Sister Agnes to preserve the original while obscuring certain words in the copies. She proposes copying each page first, letting him alter that version, and then using the amended copy as the master. The process keeps the original intact while allowing its contents to be shared in a form that conceals identifying details. Lomeli requests 118 copies, and Sister Agnes’s slight widening of her eyes registers the scale of what he is about to do.

He works through the report and carefully blacks out the names of the eight cardinals to whom Tremblay had allegedly given cash. He then reviews the document from the beginning to ensure that none of the names remains visible. The resulting redactions make the document look more like a classified file, but they do not remove its central allegation. Lomeli understands that the report may eventually reach the press; his calculation is that the reputational harm may fall more heavily on Tremblay or on the Church, and he cannot know which.

Distribution Before the Vote

Lomeli gives Sister Agnes the amended report to reproduce. As the machine makes the copies, he asks God to forgive him. Sister Agnes responds that God will forgive him if his heart is pure. The exchange underscores his awareness that the act is morally fraught: he is handling a document taken from the late Pope’s apartment, disclosing confidential material, and intervening in the election, yet he believes withholding the report could also have grave consequences.

When the copies are ready, Lomeli and Sister Agnes put them into two boxes of A4 Manila envelopes. He wants every cardinal to have an opportunity to read the report before leaving to vote, but worries there may not be enough time to deliver one to every room. He therefore chooses the dining room as the distribution point. They seal the envelopes, divide the pile, and place them on the chairs while the nuns are preparing breakfast. Tremblay is celebrating Mass in the chapel as they work.

Lomeli continues despite exhaustion and a throbbing headache. When he and Sister Agnes meet at the centre of the dining room, the final envelopes have been placed. She kneels and kisses his ring before leaving without speaking. With the reports distributed, Lomeli has made the allegations available to the electors without publicly identifying the eight cardinals named in the original.

Consequences and Significance

The report’s circulation changes the terms of the conclave’s deliberations. It is no longer merely an item in the late Pope’s private investigation: each cardinal has the opportunity to consider it before voting. The redactions make that disclosure partial rather than complete, preserving the names of the alleged recipients while ensuring the accusation against Tremblay is shared. The evidence supplied here establishes the act and its immediate purpose, not how every elector responds to the envelopes.

Lomeli’s decision brings institutional procedure into tension with accountability. Bellini’s warning is that exposing the report could compromise the Church and a future papacy; Lomeli’s concern is that electing a Pope before examining the evidence could leave a serious question unresolved. He acts without Bellini’s participation and accepts responsibility for the likely consequences. The quiet, practical work of redaction, copying, sealing, and placing envelopes thus becomes a consequential intervention: confidential evidence is neither buried nor disclosed without limits, but put before the body charged with choosing the Church’s next leader.