#Conclave of 2005

[deadpresidents]

If you had to bet everything right now, who do you think will be the next pope?

I've studied the papacy and papal conclaves enough to know the old saying that "He who enters the conclave as pope, leaves it as a cardinal" and that the most prominent papabili usually don't get elected.

However, Joseph Ratzinger was the heavy favorite going into the 2005 Conclave following Pope John Paul II's death and he was quickly elected. In the 2013 Conclave following Pope Benedict XVI's resignation, Jorge Bergoglio was a surprising choice as Pope Francis to most people outside of the Vatican, but he had been the runner-up to Ratzinger in 2005, so he wasn't that big of a shocker.

The novemdiales have just started, the public viewing of Pope Francis hasn't begun yet, and the College of Cardinals are just now making its way to Rome for the funeral and pre-conclave congregations, so a lot can happen in the next two weeks. But for several years now, I have felt that Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines would be the successor to Pope Francis. I still strongly believe that he's going to be the choice, even though many outlets have him as the front-runner (which, again, is traditionally considered a bad sign for their chances in the conclave). At 67, Tagle is not too old and not too young, so he's kind of in the sweet spot when it comes to age range for Popes. He's considered the "Asian Francis", so he would seemingly continue with the direction of the church as intended by Francis over the past 12 years. He's from an area of the world that the church, under Francis, has focused significant energy on promoting Catholicism in a relatively young, growing population. And he's incredibly charismatic. I'd put my money on him.

Some observers have suggested that the College of Cardinals is going to take this as an opportunity to elect a more conservative pope who will reverse the more progressive form of Catholicism espoused by Pope Francis since 2013. But understand this: there are 135 cardinals eligible to vote in this conclave and Pope Francis chose 108 of them (only cardinals who have not yet reached the age of 80 years old are eligible to cast votes in the conclave). Many are from diverse, often remote, parts of the world that have never before been represented by a cardinal and most of them are aligned with the pastoral perspective of Francis. Through his appointments to the College of Cardinals, Francis reshaped the church's leadership to help him reform the Roman Curia and govern the church -- but also to forge the generation of ecclesiastical leadership that follows him, and not only do I think they will elect Cardinal Tagle to succeed him but I think we'll see white smoke from the Sistine Chapel pretty quickly once the conclave begins.

[dum-spiro-spero99]

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[imanoddsweetthing]

Pope Innocent discovering emojis

[stephfandomdumps]

[howisthepope]

Wasn't Francis the runner up when Benedict was elected?

Allegedly, but the conclave votes are supposed to be secret so the votes we have from the 2005 conclave are out of a diary and are entirely speculative as well those of 2013. They do not officially communicate those and the exact numbers are not confirmed.

The surprise of Francis becoming pope is something I saw in this video that I'll link below. Worth a watch, I think it's really lovely how Pope Francis spoke to the people from the start and set the tone.

[juuret]

If the pope dies the day of the esc final would italy still broadcast it?

[kirby-roth]

St Lawrence being the patron of comedians for this little bit while being roasted alive on a gridiron: “Turn me over! I am finished on this side.”

It works because while the rest of cardinals of the college are funny, Cardinal Lawrence’s about to be hilarious.

Thinking about how the main character of Conclave is a man with doubts who is not enjoying himself and his name is Thomas Lawrence which in terms of saints translates to Man With Doubt Being Roasted Alive. It’s so on the nose and I absolutely love it and wouldn’t change it for the world.

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

i watched conclave and now I really want to know more about all the drama with cardinals, how do you find out about that kind of stuff?

Ohhhh boy. Where to even begin?

Well, to start with, a lot of the cardinals in Conclave are based on real people! Bellini is obviously Carlo Maria Martini (right down to having a surname that's a mixed drink), especially in the book, where he's apparently Italian rather than Italian-American (I love that, unlike with Lawrence, who's also Italian in the book,* they didn't change his name; Stanley Tucci is eminently capable of playing an ItAm guy named Aldo Bellini <3). Martini was a "liberal" Archbishop of Milan who for much of the 90s was widely expected to succeed Pope John Paul II but ended up stalling out at the 2005 conclave.** Tedesco has a lot in common with Raymond Burke, an archconservative cardinal who's still alive and very vocal in the media, although Burke, conversely, is American rather than Italian. (America unfortunately has a very conservative local Catholic Church in general these days.) Tedesco and Burke even look similar, right down to the campy, "muffled sounds of 'Good Luck, Babe!' playing in the distance" fashion sense and body language. Tremblay has a similar career trajectory to Marc Ouellet, who, like Tremblay, was widely respected and seen as pretty middle-of-the-road until serious scandals started coming out. Adeyemi doesn't seem to be based on or inspired by any one real person, but the virulent homophobe who isn't that reactionary otherwise is a very common type of sub-Saharan African cardinal, perhaps most prominently represented currently by Fridolin Ambongo Besungu. Like with Adeyemi, I can see Ambongo picking up steam but then imploding over the course of the next IRL conclave, although it would be uncharitable to Ambongo to assume it would be for the same reasons. And so on.

(Benitez is an ideal, rather than someone inspired by a real person or ideological type, but there are cardinals who've had similarly high-stress and altruistic career and life trajectories, like Marco Zenari, Pierbattista Pizzaballa (which is seriously his name),*** and, in fairness to him, also Ambongo, who is Congolese and is regularly physically threatened by political and paramilitary forces within the DRC.)

As to how one learns more about this, you could start by setting news alerts for some of these people's names--Matteo Zuppi, Luis Antonio Tagle, Pietro Parolin, Peter Erdo, and Victor Manuel Fernandez are other names to potentially watch--or reading some books that have been written recently about the current politics of the Church, the Curia, and the Francis papacy. There's one called In the Closet of the Vatican that is incredibly scurrilous, as its title would suggest, but a rip-roaring read if you're not too concerned about forming possibly-unfair negative opinions of some of these guys. There are also writers like Austen Ivereigh and (gag) Edward Pentin who've made whole careers of being Vatican Inside Baseball Understanders, especially since Pope Francis was elected in 2013.****

In general I'd say Conclave is a very good representation of the way these people think and act, especially the constant tension between venal ambition and genuine belief that they are participating in a divine agency in the world. The tendency in non-Catholic and even some Catholic circles is to assume that only the former is present, but people are complicated.

I hope some of this helps, anon!

*I looked it up and in the book he's called Jacopo Lomeli. I've never seen this surname before, but apparently some real people do have it.

**The Catholic Church has its own ideological spectrum and there are ways in which liberal, progressive, conservative, etc. are not very useful terms, but for broad purposes they work here.

***Patriarch of Jerusalem, the only Palestinian cardinal (cardinals are counted as "from" the countries that they lived in when they became cardinals, not necessarily the countries they're from originally; in his case his country of origin is, unsurprisingly, Italy). As you might imagine, he's been in religious news a lot lately.

****Francis, or Jorge Mario Bergoglio as he was then, is widely believed to have been the runner-up at the above-mentioned 2005 conclave, which produced Pope Benedict XVI.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

The Keys Of Heaven [Chapter 8: And The Life Of The World To Come] [Series Finale]

Series summary: Three years ago, Father Aemond Targaryen performed a miracle. Now he is a cardinal, a media sensation, and a frontrunner to be elected pope. You are a nun who has been brought to Vatican City to assist with the papal conclave. But when your paths cross by happenstance, you must both reckon with your decision to join the Catholic Church…and what you want from the future.

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), references to abuse and violence, volcanoes, bodily injury, death, peril, scheming, pining, some drugs/alcohol/smoking, Catholic trivia you never asked to learn, kangaroos!

Word count: 5.7k

🦘 A very special thanks to my Aussie slang consultant @bearwithegg and also her mum (any mistakes are mine) 🦘

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @mrs-starkgaryen @chattylurker @lauraneedstochill @ecstaticactus @neithriddle, more in comments! 🥰

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Like all things here, it is a ritual. When a cardinal receives the two-thirds majority of votes required to win the papacy, amidst the applause of his peers, he is asked by the dean in Latin: Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff? And he agrees and answers: Accepto. No one ever says Non accepto. No one ever refuses the waiting adoration of over one billion souls.

Next the dean asks what papal name he wishes to be known by—Quo nomine vis vocari?—and the pope-elect gives it, Thomas I, Nicholas VI, Innocent XIV, you get the idea. Then the stove is lit and the ballots burned, along with a mixture of potassium chlorate, lactose, and pine rosin that will ensure the smoke billows from the chimney white and jubilant. The cardinals file out of the Sistine Chapel, the bells of Saint Peter’s Basilica ring, and the crowds filling the square outside cheer; and the new Holy Father dons his white cassock and zucchetto and steps out onto the balcony to introduce himself to the flocks of the faithful, to the world, to the pages of history.

Some popes were prominent voices in the Church long before entering the conclave, like the erudite Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany who became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. Others were relatively unknown, like Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland who became Pope John Paul II in 1978, elected as a consensus candidate when neither of the favorites—the conservative Giuseppe Siri and the liberal Giovanni Benelli, both of Italy—could amass a supermajority of votes. In the old days, some won the office through bribery and threats, shades of fraud that reveal a myriad of deadly sins: exorbitant pride, glittering greed, envy for acclaim they have not earned.

And yet no matter how it happens, once a man is a pope he never stops being one. Even if he resigns, even when he dies, the Church will never allow a Holy Father to be torn down or forgotten or disgraced, even if he deserves to be; and when the time comes he is entombed in Saint Peter’s Basilica or the Vatican Grottoes beneath it to become a relic like all the others, aged brittle yellowed bones of popes and nobles and royals and saints.

~~~~~~~~~~

“So you were the one killing them all along,” Rhaena says as you stand together by the koi pond. She grins at you, crooked and mischievous. She keeps flapping her arms around; she knows she doesn’t have much longer to enjoy her white wool habit and is making the most of it.

“Yeah,” you admit with a sigh. “I was.”

“You’re lucky Sister Augustina already carked it. Otherwise she would have terrorized you, she’d have been mad as a cut snake.”

“Righto.”

“We’ll need to read up on proper care for koi fish before we get our own. We can’t have you going all Ivan Milat on them, can we now?”

You look out into the horizon, trees and hedges and fountains that have turned to greyscale ghosts, the vast shadow of the wall that surrounds Vatican City. It’s been raining off and on, and the mist hangs low and heavy, opaque like the future. You can just barely hear that the crowds are singing in Saint Peter’s Square, reverberations too soft and distorted for you to decipher the song. Without realizing you’re doing it, you clasp your medallion of Saint Agatha, cold plain iron that turns warm in your hands. “Rhaena, I have to tell you something.”

“Okay,” she says, and then immediately bursts into tears.

“No, no, don’t cry, mate!” you plead, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

“I know you want to leave,” Rhaena sniffles, not angry or betrayed but only wounded, deeply and defenselessly. “I know you weren’t just saying those things because you got a concussion. I just don’t understand why. You were always so genuine and so happy. I’ve met sisters that do seem kind of miserable, but you weren’t like them!”

“My calling to be a nun was genuine,” you assure her gently. “And so is my conviction to leave now. I’ve felt it for a while. That’s why Mother Maureen sent us here, to either renew my devotion to my vows or help me hear that the Lord is leading me elsewhere.”

Rhaena paws a travel-sized package of Kleenex tissues from a pocket of her habit and noisily blows her nose, sniffles some more, peers miserably down into the dark water sparkling with flashes of scales, red and black and white and gold.

“Rhaena,” you say, and she reluctantly looks at you, her eyes swimming with tears. From her throat hangs a medallion depicting Saint Jerome, the patron saint of orphans. “I’m leaving the convent, but I’m not leaving Sydney. And I’m not leaving you either.”

“You’ll forget about me.”

“No, I won’t. I’ll get a flat in the city somewhere, but I’ll visit you and Mother Maureen all the time. I’ll still volunteer at the shelter and go to Mass every Sunday. I’ll still help you build the koi pond.”

“Really?” Rhaena whimpers, wanting very badly to believe you.

“Defo. I love you, mate. You’re my family. I don’t want to be anywhere else.” But if Aemond ever flew to visit Athens, I’d go with him, you think, a thought that seems to come from nowhere. To find his son that he’s never met. To find his grandchildren.

Rhaena dabs at her eyes with a fresh Kleenex, the tears slowing. “But I’m still so confused…I mean, renouncing your vows, that’s heaps drastic! Why do you have to go right now? What do you think you need that you can’t get as a nun?”

“Well…” You smirk, and when she realizes what you mean you both laugh.

“Seriously?” Rhaena asks.

“Yeah. I thought I was alright without it, but turns out I’m not.”

“You want a husband?”

You nod, smiling a little to yourself. “I can’t stop envisioning myself with a partner. Maybe kids too, I’m not sure. That part is still fuzzy.”

Rhaena sighs. “I can’t relate, but I guess that gives it some context.” Then a disturbing notion strikes her. “You and Cardinal Targaryen, you’re not…you’re not, like, interested in him or anything, right?”

“Oh no, of course not,” you lie very convincingly.

“Good, because I know you two get along and all but he’s deadset not available. And you can’t do anything to hurt his reputation once he’s the pope.”

“No wukkas.” You stare into the thick grey mist, breathe in the cool December air that tastes like metal. Soon you’ll be in Sydney, Australia, where the sand is golden and the air hot and dry and buzzing with the hymns of cicadas, and Aemond will still be here: moving into the Apostolic Palace, greeting multitudes of the exuberant faithful, holding audiences with world leaders. “He’s very committed to the role.”

“He’s going to do amazing things,” Rhaena says softly, dreamily.

“Too right,” you murmur in reply, faint like an echo ricocheting back through decades.

“Should we go help with brekkie so Sister Penny doesn’t have an aneurysm?”

“Yeah, we probably should.”

But you walk slowly, not wanting to see Aemond, not believing that you’ll be able to keep your eyes from drifting to him and getting ensnared there like the iron combs in Saint Blaise’s flesh, stained with crimson blood and torn ropes of muscle. But Aemond is not in the dining hall. Nobody else seems especially alarmed by this; they assume he is praying—or, if they are a cynic like Auclair, at least pretending to—in these final moments before he is given one of the greatest responsibilities in human history, something no good man would ever crave.

As you bring fette biscottate, coffee, and hot chocolate to Aemond’s usual table, Lucky decides to go check on him. He waves goodbye to his friends and gives you a deep nod before he leaves the dining hall, like he’s acknowledging a sacrifice you’ve made. You blink at Lucky, startled despite the fact that you shouldn’t be by now.

Is this really happening? Is this really over?

Cam, cleaning his round eyeglasses with a microfiber cloth, is asking Kazi: “When are you coming to visit me again?”

“Never, if you’re going to make me sleep in a yurt.”

Cam laughs. “They’re called gers. And the ger is a beloved and ancient fixture of Mongolian culture!”

“If I wanted no hot water or television, I could have stayed in the Eastern Bloc.”

“Gers are older than the Catholic Church.”

“So are caves, and I don’t want to sleep in one of those either.”

“We had fun in the ger last time.”

“You made me play Parcheesi until 4 a.m.”

“Yeah, like I said. We had fun.”

Kazi rolls his eyes and then turns to Lando, puffing on his vape. The vapor is sweet and fruity, maybe strawberry. “You must be very excited to get back to your orphans.”

“You would think so,” Lando replies. “But I woke up this morning and, much to my own surprise, found myself a little sad to be leaving. There is so much history here, and so many new people to meet always coming and going. It’s all very inspiring, you know? I’d like to return someday. Perhaps I could find a way to make myself useful.”

Kazi shrugs. “Well, there are orphans everywhere, I suppose.”

Now the dean Cardinal Seaborn is rushing over, his grey hair ruffled, his red zucchetto slightly askew. “Cardinal Nowak, I beg you, please stop smoking inside,” he says.

Kazi grins as he slides his white-and-red vape into a pocket of his scarlet cassock, thirty-three buttons fastened from his throat to his ankles. “I hope you are enjoying yourself, Brother. It is your last chance to scold me.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Lucky finds him outside in the mist, leaning against the sand-colored concrete exterior of the Domus Sanctae Marthae and smoking a Karelia cigarette. From Saint Peter’s Square, he can hear the crowds singing The First Noel.

“Pre-wedding jitters?” Lucky jokes, then he turns serious when he sees Aemond’s face, the unscarred right half shellshocked and full of dread. “Aemo, what’s wrong?”

“I just, um…” Aemond takes a drag and exhales smoke while he searches for the words. His bandaged hand is shaking, Lucky notices. This shocks him; he has never seen Aemond rattled before, not when he visited sites of earthquakes and landslides and wildfires, not when he blessed people who had been pulled from the rubble, maimed like he was on Nea Kameni. “I guess I’m feeling a little…conflicted.”

Lucky tries to soothe him. “It’s an immense responsibility. It would give anyone pause.”

Aemond flicks ashes off the end of his cigarette, avoiding Lucky’s eyes, large and dark and sympathetic and wanting so sincerely to help.

“This isn’t about the nun, is it?”

“No,” Aemond says. Then he winces and confesses. “Yeah, it is.”

Lucky is exasperated. “You’ve wanted to be the pope for as long as I’ve known you, even longer than that, I’m sure, and I’ve always felt that there was no better candidate. Now suddenly you see her again after all these years and you become a different person? If you believe God is telling you to leave the Church and be with her, you can share that with me. You can unburden yourself, and we can discuss it. I cannot argue with God. If He has called you away—”

“God doesn’t speak to me,” Aemond says. “He never has.”

Lucky’s brow furrows. Never? he must be thinking. That can’t be right. Never?! “What is it that led you to the Church?”

Aemond admits in a whisper: “Pride.”

“But…you do have some faith, don’t you…?”

Aemond doesn’t reply; he just stares back at him miserably, his cigarette smoldering between his fingers.

“Aemo,” Lucky says slowly, trying to stay calm. “You are my brother. And you are my friend, and I love you, always, unconditionally. But I don’t know how to help you right now. I don’t know what you’re asking for.”

“I don’t know either.”

Lucky points at the building. “Those men in there are going to elect you in half an hour. It’s happening.”

“Right,” Aemond says, like he can’t quite comprehend it.

“I don’t think I could stop it even if I wanted to. People think you are a saint, Aemo. They think you’ve been chosen by God. I think you’ve been chosen by Him.”

Aemond nods and stares into the mist, silent, forlorn, his cassock a long gash of red like an open wound, like a stigmata.

“Who else?” Lucky asks softly. “Who else could we trust to lead the Church in the right direction? Who else could get enough votes to win? Give me a name and I will see what can be done. I’ll do it for you, even if I believe you are a miracle worker and a gift to this world. But I can’t think of anybody else. Can you?”

“No,” Aemond says.

The cardinals begin leaving the Domus Sanctae Marthae, pouring out into one of the narrow streets that wind through Vatican City like veins, and Lucky swiftly conjures a broad, blithe smile and greets them, then leads the procession towards the Sistine Chapel. It is the last time they will be ceremonially locked inside to vote, a symbolic holdover from the days when cardinals were not permitted to leave the chapel at all until a new pope was chosen, not even if it took weeks. After all, the word ‘conclave’ comes from Latin: cum clave, meaning ‘with a key.’

As the ballots are tallied, Aemond hears Cardinal Jahoda’s name called twice, Lando’s called a handful of times, and his own name called again and again and again. He gazes at the vast sky blue fresco painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment, illustrating the Second Coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. He sees Saint Lawrence with the gridiron he was roasted alive on, and is reminded that Lawrence—the patron saint of cooks and comedians—is Kazi’s favorite, just as Lucky wears a medallion etched with the likeness of Saint Valentine and Cam has a ring depicting Saint Catherine of the breaking wheel. Aemond sees Saint Bartholomew clutching his own flayed skin, Saint Sebastian riddled with arrows, Saint Peter holding the Keys of Heaven. And Aemond does not believe in any of this, and he never has, not even in moments of weakness, not even as a metaphor; but she does, and he can’t stop thinking about her.

I left her once, and it was hell for both of us. How can I do it again?

Aemond glances over at Lando, who sits beside him, and sees that he is making absentminded sketches in red ink as he waits for the last of the ballots to be counted. Lando has drawn a menagerie of tiny animals: a gecko, a manatee, a stork, a shaggy-haired yak...and a kangaroo, bounding across the white paper. Aemond closes his eye and sees them again: hopping on the beach in the early morning hours, grazing on tufts of grass that grow out of the sand dunes, nibbling on tangles of seaweed that wash up onto the shore, leaving pawprints that he and a nine-year-old girl kneel down to trace reverently with their small fragile fingertips.

Through the veil—time and space woven together until they become impossible to separate—Aemond realizes that the cardinals are clapping and gathering around him. Kazi and Cam are competing to see who can cheer louder. Auclair is scowling at them as he performatively pats his palms together, not making a sound. Lucky is smiling, but he is watching Aemond with trepidation, perhaps even with fear.

“Aemo, are you alright?” Lando whispers with concern.

Cardinal Seaborn is asking: “Acceptasne electionem de te canonice factam in Summum Pontificem?”

When Aemond doesn’t instantly accept, panic crosses the dean’s face.

Seaborn says again, more urgently: “Acceptasne electionem de te canonice factam in Summum Pontificem?!”

~~~~~~~~~~

You hear applause coming from inside the Sistine Chapel, and you stare at the tall wooden doors, locked and flanked by two Swiss Guardsmen wielding their halberds.

“I reckon we should go tell Sister Penny, Sister Nuru, and Sister Helvi that it’s almost time to hear his first homily,” Rhaena says excitedly.

“Sure thing,” you reply. But then you sprint for the doors.

“What are you doing?!” Rhaena yelps as she follows you.

You rip through the Guardsmen when they try to block your path, drop to your knees on the grey marble steps, press yourself against the wood so you can hear what’s happening inside.

A Swiss Guardsman snaps: “Sister, no one is permitted near the doors.”

“Quiet.

“Sister—”

“Be quiet or I will pray for God to do horrible things to you!” you say, and the man appears shaken. The Guardsmen blink at each other, uncertain of how to proceed. After some hesitation, Rhaena apologizes meekly to them and then perches on the top with you.

“What’s going on?” she murmurs. And you listen, through the rush of blood in your arteries, through the pounding rhythm of your heart, until you hear his voice.

“Non accepto!” you shout from where you kneel just outside the Sistine Chapel. “He said non accepto!”

Rhaena gasps. “What?! Why?!”

“I don’t know!”

One of the Guardsmen seizes your arm and tries to drag you away. You don’t flinch at all, and you don’t move either. “Sister, forgive me, but you must not—”

“Shh!” you hiss fiercely at him, and he recoils, and again you lay your palms and ear flat against the door.

~~~~~~~~~~

The cardinals have erupted into chaos. People are yelling, protesting, interrogating, surely they could not have heard him correctly. Jahoda, Auclair, and Ferrari have huddled together and are chattering eagerly. Lucky is rubbing his forehead and staring vacantly at the floor. “What the fuck?” Kazi mutters to Cam, who shakes his head; he doesn’t understand either.

Aemond stands and walks down into the aisle, then addresses his audience. “Thank you, Brothers, for your great faith in me. But I believe I am being called to a different sort of life. And I…” He touches the gleaming gold cross that hangs from his neck, then takes it off and sets it on a table that’s been brought in for the conclave. There are sharp, scandalized intakes of breath. “I must confess that I am in love with a woman and I intend to live with her as a layperson, and therefore I am not fit for this office, nor even to cast a vote for the next man to hold it. So I’ll be leaving now.”

There are more outbursts of shock and despair; some men are weeping. Cardinal Seaborn collapses limply into a chair and clutches his chest.

“In my last act as a member of this conclave, and as a cardinal,” Aemond says. “I implore you to turn to someone who best embodies the qualities of Christ: humility, compassion, charity, faithfulness, forgiveness.” Then he looks at Lando, a long meaningful stare, until the other men start to notice. Lando gazes back at Aemond, speechless. What, me? the expression on his face reads.

Aemond bows his head, a hushed farewell, and strides towards the locked doors. In seconds, Lucky has grasped his plan and surged to the center of the roiling crowd, his voice booming, his gestures dramatic and rousing.

“Brothers, I invite anyone who has a single criticism against Cardinal Almazan to speak now! Who here can give voice to even one instance of pride, or wrath, or envy? No, we are all well-acquainted with his character...”

When he reaches the tall wooden doors of the Sistine Chapel, Aemond thumps his fist against them. “Unlock the doors!” he commands, and then when the Swiss Guardsmen outside are reluctant, Cardinal Seaborn joins him.

“Open up!” Seaborn orders. “This is the dean! We have one cardinal leaving. Do this quickly, so the conclave can resume!”

There is the metal scraping of a key in a lock, and then cool December daylight streams in through the space that appears like the vastness of the ocean. The nuns that had been kneeling on the marble step skitter out of the way, but Aemond only sees one of them. She staggers backwards and gapes at him, waiting for him to speak. After a moment, he does.

“What you said about us leaving together…is that still something you’re open to?”

She nods, thunderstruck but beginning to smile. “Yeah, defo.”

“Do you think we could get a driver to take us to the airport?”

“If you’re the one who asks, sure.”

And he offers her his bandaged palm, and she takes it, and he pulls her in like he did in the golden candlelit glow of the Clementine Chapel in the Vatican Grottoes and kisses her, not for the last time but for one of the very first, his hands now perfectly clean.

~~~~~~~~~~

They have placed a Christmas tree in Saint Peter’s Square, towering and covered with ornaments and lights, right in the center beside the ancient Egyptian obelisk that has stood there since the 1500s. Today, tourists who have flown in from all over the world take selfies in front of it, and when the holidays have passed the tree will not be simply discarded but repurposed into toys for children in need, and so it will be passed on and on and on again, like a cherished heirloom, like the Keys of Heaven.

As the Fiat Panda skirts around the piazza, you look out through the tinted window into the crowds, carrying their homemade signs and waving their miniature flags and waiting for white smoke to billow from the Sistine Chapel. There are reporters interviewing attendees in front of video cameras labelled CNN, BBC, ABC, the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, Mega TV. There has been an altar of sorts assembled at the spot where Aemond freed you from the burning car, a display of white candles and red poinsettias; and there are statues and banners of Saint Agatha too. Someone must have told the press that she is your favorite saint, perhaps Mother Maureen when they called the convent.

Beside you in the back seat, Aemond wears something inconspicuous so he won’t get mobbed at the airport, black trackies and a white crewneck. He has also procured a pair of black sunnies from the driver. You are dressed in Levi’s and a red turtleneck sweater with reindeer on it. Back in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, you and Rhaena folded up your habits and stowed them away in your luggage; but your rosary is still in the pocket of your jeans, white pearls, a silver chain. As you gaze out into the crowds, you clasp the small iron medallion you’ll wear for the rest of your life, Saint Agatha and the torture that broke her body but left her soul unscarred.

“Dear God, you’re both famous,” Rhaena says from the passenger’s seat as she scrolls through her phone, social media posts and news articles and YouTube videos that have circulated prolifically while the conclave was trapped in seclusion. “People are calling the two of you their Roman Empire. They say they ship it. And you’re a meme, look!”

She shows you and Aemond a viral photo of him cradling you in one of the fountains of Saint Peter’s Square, the white Fiat engulfed in flames and screaming pedestrians in the background, both of you drenched with water, your eyes closed and his blood cascading down your face as he smooths back your hair, like you’re being baptized with it. The text box superimposed over your body reads: Me contemplating driving off a bridge during my morning commute. And then in the box on top of Aemond: A $9 iced coffee.

“Hm,” Aemond says, tapping his chin in that way that he does when he’s thinking. “So I guess we’re not going to be able to disappear into anonymity quite so easily.”

“Yeah nah, not a chance.” Rhaena beams at him. She keeps accidentally calling him Cardinal Targaryen, but that’s not his name anymore. “I think you’ll be inspiring people for a long, long time.”

Aemond smiles and drapes his arm across the back of your seat. There is no medallion around his neck, no rosary in his pockets, and there won’t be until he truly believes, and perhaps he never will. You’ll love him even if he doesn’t. Aemond tells the driver to turn on the car radio, and then makes him change the station until he finds Christmas music: O Come, All Ye Faithful.

At the airport, the customer service agents are remarkable unhelpful—swamped with holiday traffic and wearing jingling felt reindeer antlers or oversized Santa hats—until Aemond takes off his sunnies and they recognize him, their mouths falling open, their eyes filling up their faces.

“Father, aren’t you supposed to be getting elected pope right now?” one of them asks in a thick Italian accent.

But Aemond just shakes his head and flashes a grin. “God has other plans for me.”

Almost immediately, the agents find three seats for you on an outbound flight to Sydney, ten thousand miles southeast, eight hours ahead of the time zone here in Rome, twenty-nine years in the past. You sprint through the airport to find the gate—yanking Rhaena along when she tries to stop at Starbucks for a cuppa—and arrive just minutes before boarding begins. You take this opportunity to call Mother Maureen while Rhaena races back to the Starbucks, promising she’ll be quick. You have thousands of texts and DMs to reply to from your time in seclusion. At least you’ll have something to keep you occupied on the twenty-two hour journey, including a layover in Dubai.

The phone rings only once; she must have been waiting for you. “Hello?”

“Hi, Mum.”

“Hi, darling!” Mother Maureen cries, and you can feel the warmth of the hug she’ll give you when you land, and you can see the crinkles at the corners of her eyes and the long silver braid down her back. “How’s it going, love? You’re done there, yeah? We saw the white smoke. We’re all gathered around the telly waiting to see who walks out onto that balcony.”

They voted again already? “Yeah, I’m on my way home. And Rhaena too, of course.”

And then there is a pause, like the lull between the tolls of a bell. “Are you coming to visit, or to stay?”

You look to Aemond, who is wearing his black sunnies again and trying very hard not to be noticed, clasping your left hand, skating his thumbprint over the bumps of your knuckles; now he is allowed to touch you, and he never wants to stop. “Just for a visit.”

Mother Maureen can hear the smile in your voice. “Rather chuffed with yourself, aren’t you?” she teases. “I’m happy because you’re happy.”

“And I’m bringing someone with me.”

Now you’ve surprised her. “Really? Who?”

“A friend from a long time ago.”

Mother Maureen is confounded. “What?”

“I’ll explain when I get there.”

“Oh, they’re about to announce the next pope!” she says, and you can hear the other sisters in the background, indistinct ambient squeals of excitement. “It has to be that Targaryen bloke, right?”

You glance over at Aemond again. “I doubt it, Mum.”

“Oh, it’s...it’s...” Mother Maureen gasps. A chorus of bewildered turmoil fills the lounge room at the convent. “It’s some Filipino man that no one has ever heard of!”

Lando?! “Okay, I have to go, Mum! We’re about to board.”

“Text me your flight number so I can track you!”

“Sure thing. Cheers.”

You hang up, and before you can say anything, you hear a crescendo of a roar, like a concert stadium, like ancient Romans filling up the Colosseum to watch Christian martyrs get fed to lions. You and Aemond twist around in your chairs to see that passengers are turning up the volume on a flatscreen television mounted on the wall, CNN, urgent red graphics, breaking news. Rhaena returns with three gingerbread chai lattes and gawks at the television.

There on the screen, Lando steps out onto the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica. And applauding all around him are the cardinals of the conclave, and the loudest among them are his friends, their faces beaming and their cheers triumphant, and perhaps even more than that, proud: Lucky, Kazi, Cam. Jahoda and his supporters are clapping politely; this is a compromise they can live with. The dean Cardinal Seaborn looks like he could cry with relief.

Lando, now Pope Nicholas VI and dressed in white, speaks into the microphone with a dazed, shy smile: “Brothers and Sisters, I did not expect to be here, and you surely did not expect to see me either.”

The crowds in Saint Peter’s Square laugh, so deafeningly you can hear them through the television. You catch glimpses of tourists waving miniature flags of the Philippines. The Holy Father pauses to collect his thoughts before he continues. Here in the Leonardo da Vinci International Airport, more and more travelers are stopping to watch the small soft-spoken man on the luminous screen, their suitcases rolling to a halt, their expressions curious and then hopeful.

“In recent events, God has shown us the power of His miracles to heal, and to comfort, and to bring people together, and to revive faith that has been lost to us,” the new pope says. “It is my most sincere wish to define my pontificate with these same attributes. And it would not be right to address you here today without thanking one of my dearest friends, Cardinal Aemond Targaryen of Greece, for everything he has done for the Church and for the world. You will not see him here today. He has been called to a different vocation, just as noble, just as important, and I’m sure he will speak to you directly to share more about that when the time is right.”

A middle-aged man standing behind you whispers to his wife: “I knew he had something going on with that nun.”

“Would you save me from a burning car, babe?” the wife asks playfully.

“Oh yeah, totally,” the husband says, but he doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

The Holy Father continues: “Today, Brothers and Sisters, I ask for your patience and your prayers. To be entrusted with the Keys of Heaven is a sobering honor, and I am still at this moment very much in awe of their weight.” The people in Saint Peter’s Square cheer for him again: Bless you, Father! We love you, Father! “I am reminded of the Lord’s teachings that we are all God’s children, the beneficiaries of His boundless peace and mercy, the recipients of His promise of everlasting life, and as children we can never expect ourselves to be faultless, but rather to respond to inevitable missteps with compassion for both others and ourselves...”

But now your flight has begun boarding, and a life on the other side of the planet awaits you, something new but something old too, something mortal and yet divine, something resurrected.

Upon examination of the tickets, Aemond and Rhaena’s seats are together, while you are across the aisle. You tell Rhaena that you will switch with Aemond to sit with her, but she shakes her head. “No, you two should sit together,” she objects, and then when you try to decline, she insists. “I have to get used to giving you some space, don’t I?” she says, smiling warmly even if her eyes are still a bit sad. She is wearing a green velvet dress freckled with silver Christmas trees, and she looks so young. Was I really her age when I took my vows? I didn’t know anything yet. “It’s not like I’m going to move in when you get married. So go on, enjoy your flight. I have a lot of YouTube videos to catch up on anyway. We can meet up by the bathroom to have a yarn every hour or two. I’ll fetch you. Don’t think I’ll forget. Don’t get too distracted by your snogging or whatever.”

You chuckle and embrace her, only for a moment but very tightly. “I love you, mate.”

“I love you, sinner.”

And you both burst out laughing, and then you part ways, Rhaena to one row as you and Aemond take your seats in another.

The plane barrels down the runway, becomes weightless somehow and lifts into the sky, pitches and shudders until it is high above Rome and ascending rapidly, soft white clouds and an endless blue horizon. You gaze through the oval of clear glass, cold beneath your palm and fingerprints, thinking of froth on the ocean and the crumbling slopes of sand dunes. Beside you, Aemond types and retypes the same message over and over again in his Notes app, trying to figure out what to say to the son he’s never met. Then he opens Spotify and puts his AirPods in your ears, and his bandaged right hand lingers afterwards, cradling the curve of your jaw and stroking your cheek, threading his fingers through your unbound hair. And then he plays you a song. It’s Atlantic City, and it’s about the mafia, and escape, and love, and things that have died coming back to have a second chance at life.

You see yourself there again, a pizza place on the boardwalk when Sydney is hot and radiant with summer, and Aemond is not a twelve-year-old boy but a man, and instead of vanishing through the doorway into a labyrinth of night and stars and streetlights he is walking in to join you at the table, and he is smiling. Then Aemond’s son is there too, and his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren, and Sister Rhaena and Mother Maureen; and after twenty-nine years everything is right again, and everyone is home.

[omg-they-were-clavemates]

You, writing the conclave fanfic!

Have you seen this book?

It's How to Be Pope by Piers Marchant, and it's a short, fun guide addressed to the reader as if you are the newly elected pope!

It's basically a worldbuilding bible for the papacy!

I had 60 tabs open for my last fic trying to figure out what Vincent actually has to do now, if he has a passport, what they're all allowed to wear, what hospital he would go to, etc. All here!

I got my copy on thriftbooks for like $7.

It was published in 2005, so the most recent popes are absent, but it's full of good stuff. Table of contents under the cut.

[franklinwvixen]

Sister Agnes saves the day once again!

I have watched a couple interviews with our new Pope's two brothers. They both said he watched Conclave before the actual conclave. And this one said Isabella Rossellini's character inspired him to ask the women their opinion on the various Cardinals. And that made me cry for some reason.

But it also reminded me that you gotta talk to your family members about what they are allowed to say on the off chance I get famous for something. I don't want all the talk to be of what sportsball team I follow (one brother very upset news said he was a Cubs fan when he likes White Sox). Mostly because I don't. But still.

ETA: His niece had to call into work that she wasn't coming in because her uncle is the Pope. I don't think some employers would accept that excuse.

[deadpresidents]

Can you recommend any books on conclaves to elect popes?

Yes, I can!

•The Triple Crown: An Account of the Papal Conclaves from the Fifteenth Century to Modern Times (BOOK) by Valerie Pirie Even though this book was originally published in 1935 (the edition I have is the updated 1965 version), it is a great look at each of the conclaves from the election of Pope Callixtus III in 1455 to Pope Leo XIII in 1878. Unlike a lot of older books, the Triple Crown is a really easy read and one that you can breeze through while learning a lot about 400+ years of papal elections. And while I'm old-fashioned and need to actually have a physical copy of a book in order to read it, Pirie's entire book is actually available online to read for free at this website.

•Passing the Keys: Modern Cardinals, Conclaves, and the Election of the Next Pope (BOOK) by Francis A. Burkle-Young Originally published in 1999, Passing the Keys takes a look at more modern conclaves than The Triple Crown. In fact, Burkle-Young's book picks up where Pirie's book ends -- with short histories of the conclaves of 1878 (Pope Leo XIII), 1903 (Pope Pius X), 1914 (Pope Benedict XV), and 1922 (Pope Pius XI). Then the book takes an in-depth look at the conclaves of 1939 (Pope Pius XII), 1958 (Pope John XXIII), 1963 (Pope Paul VI), August 1978 (Pope John Paul I), and October 1978 (Pope John Paul II).

•The Popes of Avignon: A Century in Exile (BOOK) by Edwin Mullins, and Avignon and Its Papacy, 1309-1417: Popes, Institutions, and Society (BOOK | KINDLE) by Joëlle Rollo-Koster While not solely about conclaves, these two books are solid histories on the Avignon Papacy, a period during the Fourteenth Century when over a half-dozen Popes (all French) were elected in and ruled from France due to pressure and influence from various French monarchs.

•The Year of Three Popes (BOOK) by Peter Hebblethwaite A fascinating look at the two conclaves and three popes of 1978 by one of the great papal historians. Hebblethwaite covers the death of Pope Paul VI and conclave of August 1978, which resulted in the election of Albino Luciani as Pope John Paul I. And then, after just 33 days, the world was stunned by the sudden death of John Paul I, so the College of Cardinals had to return to Rome and hold yet another conclave, leading to the election in October 1978 of Karol Wojtyla of Poland as Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years.

•The Making of the Popes 1978: The Politics of Intrigue in the Vatican (BOOK) and The Making of the Pope 2005 (BOOK) by Father Andrew M. Greeley In the same vein as Theodore White's classic Making of the President series, Catholic priest and historian Father Andrew M. Greeley wrote two richly-detailed accounts of modern conclaves. The Making of the Popes 1978 tells the story of the two conclaves in August and October 1978 following the deaths of Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul I respectively. The Making of the Pope 2005 looks at the death of Pope John Paul II and the conclaves which elected Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI.

[lonelydragon62]

Ralph x Bafta Awards

1993: Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Schindler's List 🕯️🏆

1996: Best Actor in a Leading Role for The English Patient 🛩️

1999: Best Actor in a Leading Role for The End Of The Affair 📖

2005: Best Actor in a Leading Role for The Constant Gardener

2011: Oustanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for Coriolanus ⚔️

2014: Best Actor in a Leading Role for The Grand Hotel Budapest 🖼️

2024: Best Actor in a Leading Role for Conclave 🐢 ❓

[belovedblabber]

In light of the papal conclave 2025 would like to share about the time my father, 2005 conclave when little me wanted to know how a new pope was picked and my dad told me all the cardinals strip down grease up and wrestle and the last man standing is the pope. I believed him on account of being a child

[bearprofessorr]

keep your eyes on the road.

maintaining the line between being human and being holy was never easy.

ship: aldo bellini/thomas lawrence tags/warnings: mentioned disordered eating, pre-canon, arguments, angst with a happy ending. word count: 4k.

Summary: During the 2005 Conclave, Lawrence and Bellini grapple with their forced proximity after sharing a kiss the week before being sequestered. The insuing conversations threaten to change the dynamic of their friendship in ways neither of them could expect.

Read the full thing on ao3 <3

a/n: I grew up religious - however my knowledge on the Church is RUSTY, apologies in advance for any inaccuracies. i just had to write for these two old guys can you really blame me?

(sneak peek below the cut)

---

It was about 3:00 AM, and Aldo was woken by a knock at his apartment door. Cardinal Lawrence, Thomas, was standing outside, head bowed, eyes red. Aldo ushered him inside with a gentle hand on his shoulder, checking that no one was lingering in the corridor before closing the door behind him.

"Thomas? What's going on?" Aldo leant back against the door, his hand still on the handle while Lawrence composed himself.

Lawrence spoke softly, "I need to ask you something, and I need you to listen to what I'm saying."

"Right. Go ahead." Bellini braced himself for the words he'd been dreading to hear - but simultaneously had been praying for all the while.

"I can't function anymore. I can't pray, I can barely breathe when I'm in the same room as you." 

'After we kissed last week' went implied but never uttered. 

"I had never understood why people abandon their vows for love... but now... now I do." He stepped toward Aldo, his hand trembling as it stayed at his side, his fingertips digging into his palm.

Bellini's face dropped at the mention of love - not out of disgust, but shocked at Thomas' ability to speak the concept out into the world - he couldn't help but keep speaking.

"I can't read your mind, but I do know you. And I don't think I can survive without you in my life, Aldo." Thomas paused, his gaze dipping from Aldo's as he took a longer breath. "Not now that I know how you taste." Aldo felt the room start to spin as his hand quivered at his side. Thomas spoke again a moment later, his voice a whisper on the air, "Will you have me?"

The whole world seemed to take a breath in at that moment, awaiting Aldo's response. Even he didn't know what words would come from his lips, parted, the idea of a response on his tongue. 

"Thomas..." Aldo stepped into the room, creating distance between him and his best friend, moving to his bedside table, where a Bible, Rosary, and theological research papers sat next to his glasses case. A reminder of all he had given up, though simultaneously a reminder of why he gave did in the first place. 

"If you'll have me, I'll do whatever it takes to keep us safe. That or-"

"Or what? We both leave the Church? After all this time, all this effort?" Aldo paced around the small space. They had been sequestered for 4 days, and through it all, Thomas had been following him around like an obviously lovestruck puppy. The rumour mill had been churning alongside the regular secrets normally revealed in the process of the Conclave, not to either of their benefits. "I'm not going to sit here and let you destroy us both."

[howisthepope]

Preview conclave durations:

Duration of Conclaves in the last century

1922 – Pius XI: 5 days

1939 – Pius XII: 2 days

1958 – John XXIII: 4 days

1963 – Paul VI: 3 days

1978 – John Paul I: 2 days

1978 – John Paul II: 3 days

2005 – Benedict XVI: 2 days

2013 – Francis: 2 days