Trumbrel Election Bribery Investigation Report

The report prepared for the late Pope into Cardinal Joseph Tremblay’s alleged simony is a confidential financial investigation that turns an accusation of electoral corruption into a choice about conscience, proof, and the Church’s reputation. Its figures and bank records appear to support the claim that Tremblay used cash payments to further his candidacy, but the report cannot establish how individual recipients voted. When Jacopo Baldassare Lomeli makes a redacted version available to the electors, the document becomes not only evidence against Tremblay but a test of how much truth the Church can disclose without compounding the scandal.

Discovery and contents

The investigation emerges from papers hidden in a wooden case inside a bedpost in the late Pope’s apartment. Among bank statements, transfer records, property addresses, and the Pope’s handwritten notes, Lomeli finds a report concerning the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See. Its account of Church property gives a total area of 347,532 square metres, a potential value above €2.7 billion, and a stated book value of €389.6 million. It also estimates that only 56 percent of the property is in paid occupancy, suggesting that substantial income has not been properly declared.

The wider financial papers list official apartments occupied by serving and retired members of the Curia, including those of Jacopo Baldassare Lomeli, Aldo Bellini, Joshua Adeyemi, and Joseph Tremblay. The late Pope’s own entry records a 50-square-metre apartment at Casa Santa Marta, in contrast to the much larger apartments listed for several cardinal electors. These figures place the Tremblay inquiry within a broader examination of Church finances and the unequal use of its property, rather than presenting the alleged payments as an isolated accounting irregularity.

The report specifically concerns the activities of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples and its prefect, Tremblay. Lomeli tells Bellini that it presents an overwhelming prima facie case of simony: an attempt to obtain office through money. He alleges that Tremblay secured votes in the first ballot by paying cardinals, mostly from Africa and South America, and points to names recorded in the report. According to Lomeli, the payments were made in cash during the last twelve months, when Tremblay must have suspected that the late Pope’s pontificate was nearing its end.

What the evidence establishes—and leaves uncertain

Lomeli says that the report identifies the recipients and that he has seen their bank statements. The records therefore give the allegation a documentary basis beyond rumor or a single witness’s recollection. Yet the evidence has a defined limit: the ballots from the first round have been burned, so the electors’ votes cannot be matched to the payments. Lomeli does not claim that the recipient cardinals’ guilt is established. He allows that they may have intended to pass the money to their churches and not yet done so.

His narrower charge is that Tremblay disregarded official procedures and distributed tens of thousands of euros in a manner designed to advance his candidacy. Lomeli warns Bellini that simony carries the automatic penalty of excommunication and argues that the report would cause a major scandal if it became widely known. He also connects it to Archbishop Janusz Woźniak’s account that the late Pope ordered Tremblay to resign in his final official act. The report thus bears on both the alleged payments and the disputed story of Tremblay’s dismissal, while stopping short of proving how the electors voted or establishing that every named recipient acted corruptly.

The report’s wording and handling also form part of the evidence problem. When Raymond O’Malley questions a private secretary about the meeting between the late Pope and Tremblay, the secretary insists that it was routine; O’Malley says that this emphasis aroused his suspicions. He reports that, after he hinted that Lomeli might have seen a contradictory document, the secretary replied in Spanish that the report had been withdrawn. This exchange strengthens suspicion that the document was being suppressed, but it is still a reported conversation, not a substitute for the report’s financial records.

From confidential file to electoral evidence

The report is dated 19 October, the day the late Pope died, and is marked strictly confidential. When Sister Agnes encounters Lomeli trying to copy it, he asks for 118 copies and requests that the originals remain untouched while certain words are obscured in the copies. She makes a working copy for him to alter before reproducing the amended version. He then removes the names of the eight cardinals who received cash and checks the report again to ensure that each name has been removed.

Lomeli’s redaction protects the recipients’ identities, but it also changes what the electors can see. They receive the allegation against Tremblay and the report’s financial case without the names that might identify the other cardinals involved. The act is neither full disclosure nor concealment of the charge: Lomeli preserves the original, prepares a version for circulation, and knowingly limits the information distributed with it. As the machine produces the copies, he asks God’s forgiveness; Sister Agnes tells him that a pure heart will be forgiven.

The report’s movement from hidden file to printed copies parallels the struggle over whether the Church should control information or submit it to scrutiny. The late Pope’s wider reforms, recalled by Bellini, had demanded transparent accounts, receipts, outside tenders, and a review of financial records by accountants and management consultants. Bellini describes the resulting leaks and internal resistance, and says that the late Pope grew increasingly isolated. The investigation into Tremblay is therefore part of a longer conflict over financial oversight: an attempt to make institutional records answerable, pursued within an institution whose officials fear the damage that disclosure may cause.

Circulation, objections, and consequences

Lomeli gives Bellini the report and argues that its evidence makes a strong prima facie case against Tremblay. Bellini reads it, considers whether the money could have been used for legitimate purposes, and asks how Lomeli knows otherwise. Lomeli answers that he has seen the recipients’ bank statements. Even after accepting the importance of the records, Bellini warns that Tremblay will deny the charge and that publication could create a scandal. The document therefore changes the discussion without making judgment automatic: its figures and records must still be weighed against uncertainty about the recipients and the lost ballots.

After the redacted copies reach the electors, Lomeli remains in place and repeatedly explains his decision. He acknowledges that he broke the seals on the late Pope’s apartment and circulated the report, saying he investigated because an offence carrying excommunication might have been committed and covered up. He places the responsibility for assessing the evidence with his fellow electors, saying that he has obeyed his conscience. Some cardinals leave him with a more favorable view; others object that he has acted without giving Tremblay a chance to defend himself.

The sharpest political objection comes from Giulio Sabbadin, who tells Lomeli that he has thrown away a useful weapon that could have been used to control Tremblay after an election, and that the disclosure has instead strengthened Goffredo Tedesco. Archbishop Fitzgerald, a prominent Tremblay supporter, calls the circulation unjust because Tremblay has had no opportunity to present a defense; other cardinals at nearby tables voice agreement. Their reactions expose the report’s double consequence. It can inform a decision about the validity of Tremblay’s candidacy, but releasing it also alters the balance among competing candidates and exposes the Church to public scandal.

Significance

The report is powerful because it is both specific and incomplete. Property totals, occupancy estimates, bank records, named cash recipients, and a date give the inquiry material substance; the burned ballots and uncertainty about the recipients’ intentions leave important questions unresolved. Lomeli’s decision to circulate an anonymized version does not erase those gaps. Instead, it makes the electors responsible for judging what the surviving evidence can support.

As an object, the report passes through successive forms of concealment and disclosure: confidential inquiry, hidden papers, a claim that it was withdrawn, carefully redacted copies, and eventual circulation among the electors. Its redactions protect individuals while making the case against Tremblay harder to verify publicly; its circulation risks scandal while preventing the accusation from remaining solely in private hands. The file thus embodies the conflict between protecting the Church’s reputation and holding its officials accountable, without resolving that conflict by itself.