Tranblay was publicly questioned in a restaurant

Sister Agnes’s public intervention in the Casa Santa Marta dining room turns Cardinal Lomeli’s investigation of the late Pope’s apartment into a confrontation over Cardinal Tremblay’s conduct. By explaining that Tremblay had requested Sister Shanumi’s transfer to Rome, she gives the cardinals the reason Lomeli entered the apartment and undercuts the claim that he acted to manipulate the election. Tremblay admits making the request, but his explanation does not prevent Joshua Adeyemi from denouncing him as a traitor.

The confrontation over the report

Just after nine in the morning, Tremblay arrives in the dining hall carrying a copy of the report about the late Pope’s findings. The cardinals stop talking and eating as he approaches Lomeli. Rather than accepting Lomeli’s offer to speak privately, Tremblay insists that their confreres hear the exchange. He blames Lomeli for circulating a mendacious report and accuses him of breaking into the late Pope’s apartment to manipulate the conclave. He then calls on Lomeli to resign as dean, arguing that the cardinals can no longer trust his impartiality.

Lomeli answers that Tremblay himself is responsible for the report because of his actions. He challenges Tremblay to explain why the late Pope’s last official act was to ask him to resign. Tremblay counters that the late Pope was ill and easily confused, and invokes Cardinal Bellini as someone who could confirm the late Pope’s condition. Bellini declines to support the claim, saying nothing. The exchange thus leaves the late Pope’s alleged decision contested rather than resolved.

A demand for names, and a refusal

Goffredo Tedesco enters the dispute by shifting attention from the argument over Lomeli’s conduct to the report’s contents. He points out that it withholds the names of eight cardinals and asks Lomeli to identify them, so they can say whether they received payments and whether Tremblay requested their votes in return. The demand would turn the report into a public test of individual culpability inside the conclave.

Lomeli refuses to name the cardinals. He says he removed their names to avoid creating bitterness that would make it harder for the electors to listen to God and carry out their duty. He acknowledges that some may think he has gone too far, and says he would accept stepping down as dean, proposing Bellini as the next most senior cardinal to preside. The room breaks into competing shouts, while Bellini firmly rejects the proposal. Lomeli’s refusal protects the unnamed cardinals from immediate exposure, but leaves the accusations and the report’s allegations unresolved in public.

Sister Agnes supplies the missing cause

Into the noise comes a woman’s voice asking permission to speak. The cardinals turn in surprise as Sister Agnes advances between the tables. Her intervention is striking in the scene’s setting: she notes that the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul are supposed to be invisible, yet insists that their work gives them eyes and ears. She also identifies herself as responsible for her sisters’ welfare and apologizes for the previous day’s disturbance involving a sister of her order.

Sister Agnes explains that Lomeli had spoken to her before entering the late Pope’s rooms. He was concerned that Sister Shanumi had been brought to Rome deliberately to embarrass a member of the conclave. Sister Agnes confirms the suspicion: one of the cardinals, Tremblay, had specifically requested Sister Shanumi’s presence. She presents this discovery, rather than an intention to manipulate the election, as the reason that guided Lomeli’s actions. Her statement publicly supplies the link between the transfer request and the dean’s decision to search the late Pope’s apartment.

Admission and immediate consequence

After giving her account, Sister Agnes genuflects to the cardinals and leaves the dining room. Tremblay admits that he made the request, but says he did so because the late Pope asked him to; he also insists that he did not know who Sister Shanumi was. The explanation acknowledges the act at the centre of Sister Agnes’s testimony while disputing its implication. The account does not establish what the late Pope intended or why the transfer was requested.

For several seconds the room remains silent. Then Adeyemi stands and points at Tremblay, calling him a traitor. The public accusation crystallizes the change brought about by Sister Agnes’s testimony: the dispute is no longer only about the authenticity of a report or Lomeli’s fitness to serve as dean. It now concerns Tremblay’s admitted role in arranging Sister Shanumi’s presence in Rome, and whether his explanation can withstand the judgment of the assembled cardinals.

Significance within the conclave

The episode makes the dining room a public hearing without resolving itself into a formal verdict. Tremblay demands that others answer for the report, Tedesco asks Lomeli to expose the unnamed cardinals, and Lomeli refuses; Sister Agnes then speaks from outside the cardinal electorate to explain the circumstances behind the investigation. Her brief testimony redirects scrutiny toward the request that brought Sister Shanumi to Rome, while Tremblay’s admission confirms that the request was his.

The scene also shows the limits and force of disclosure. Lomeli withholds names to avoid inflaming the conclave, but Sister Agnes’s account makes a different fact public: Tremblay specifically requested her sister’s presence. Adeyemi’s denunciation gives the revelation an immediate political charge, though the scene offers no final ruling on Tremblay’s claim that he acted at the late Pope’s instruction. The confrontation ends with the accusation exposed and its implications hanging over the cardinals’ deliberations.