Seated, Kilkenny raised his torso vertical and with each breath widened his chest. He could feel the energy flowing from the center of his body. He interlocked his fingers, turned his palms out, and raised his outstretched arms high above his head.
Virasana. The word suddenly flashed into Kilkenny’s conscious mind — the name the young woman who taught yoga at the community center had called this pose. The hero posture.
He moved slowly through a series of asanas, loosening his joints and steadying his breathing and the flow of blood throughout his body. The anxiety ebbed as he stretched, some of the ancient postures proving to be a challenge within the restrictive confines of the cell. A sheen of sweat dampened his prison uniform.
Through the exercises, Kilkenny achieved a state of meditative calm. His conscious mind possessed something that his body could not comprehend — faith. Kilkenny’s situation, though dire, was not hopeless. That hope was rooted in the faith he had in his friends and the team they had assembled for this mission.
20
On the morning of the fifteenth day following the death of Pope Leo XIV, the cardinals gathered inside Saint Peter’s Basilica to take part in the votive mass Pro Eligendo Papa — For the Election of the Pope. They were as one, a sea of scarlet and white in the transepts and nave surrounding the baldacchino. The archpriest of the patriarchal Vatican basilica led his fellow cardinals and the faithful in attendance through the somber Eucharistic celebration. The theme of the mass could be distilled to a single hope — that God would help the cardinals select the right man to lead the Church. As voices of the pontifical choir rose in song, filling the basilica with the closing hymn, each cardinal felt the enormity of the task at hand.
After the mass, the cardinal electors gathered in the pontifical palace, in the four-room suite known as the Stanze di Raphaello — the Raphael Rooms. There, they enjoyed a light lunch while surrounded by frescos painted by the Renaissance master and his finest students. Though widely differing in subject matter, frescos ranging from the School of Athens and Parnassus to Battle of and Constantine’s Donation, the suite was unified in themes celebrating the power of faith and the Church. In the Room of the Fire of the Borgo, the frescos make specific reference to Leo III and Leo IV, predecessors of Leo X, under whose pontificate the room was decorated. As Donoher studied the figure of Pope Leo III extinguishing the Borgo fire of 847 by making the sign of the cross, the cardinal wondered how Raphael would have depicted the accomplishments of the most recent Leo.
The cardinals, all robed in scarlet, clustered in small groups admiring the paintings and discussing in low tones the needs of the Church or the merits of various papabili. Cardinal Magni sat with a small group of Italian cardinals, among them Cardinal Gagliardi. Considered a papabile before cardiac problems effectively eliminated him from consideration, the gregarious cardinal from Palermo still carried a strong voice in Italy and throughout Europe.
A handful of Latin American cardinals gathered around Escalante, while Ryff, Oromo, and Velu moved among the other electors renewing acquaintances. Donoher sensed that alliances were forming — some geographic, others strategic, but all with the same purpose.
As he sipped an espresso, Donoher considered the unusual politics involved in electing a Pope. An aspirant for the papacy does not openly run for the position as does a politician seeking a publicly elected office. Also, the fine art of backroom deal-making, of granting concessions and promises in exchange for votes, was a practice prohibited under pain of immediate excommunication. Further reducing such temptation — as if the loss of one’s soul to eternal damnation was not enough — the Apostolic Constitution nullified all such agreements, freeing the new Pope from any negotiated commitments made to secure his election. Simony simply did not pay.
Despite the global presence of the Church, the rest of the world played no role in selecting one of the last absolute monarchs, thanks largely to the Austrian emperor Franz Josef. During the 1903 conclave the emperor attempted to exercise the ancient veto right of Catholic monarchs against a cardinal he found politically objectionable. Today, anyone involved with the conclave who attempts to influence the election at the behest of a government would suffer immediate excommunication from the Church.
Donoher milled about, looking from face to face. Some he knew well, others hardly at all. Some were dear friends, and others he tolerated as a form of penance. Yet soon, one would be the next Pope.
Who among us? Donoher mused. Who among us?
As the Camerlengo considered the upcoming election, Archbishop Sikora approached him. The man seemed to have aged in the days since the Pope’s death.
‘Your Eminence, may I have a word with you in private?’
‘Of course, Archbishop. We still have a bit of time before the conclave begins.’
In the early afternoon, the cardinal electors gathered in the Pauline Chapel. They stood beneath the frescoed walls and ceilings robed in formal choir dress. There, in the presence of the cardinals, all those performing supporting roles to the conclave — including the master of papal liturgical celebrations, priest confessors, an ecclesiastic, two masters of ceremonies, medical personnel, and the cooks and housekeepers at Domus Sanctae Marthae — were sworn to preserve the secrecy of the conclave.
At the appointed hour, a bell was rung and the cardinals proceeded two by two toward the Sistine Chapel. As they walked through the ornate passageways of the Apostolic Palace, the cardinals solemnly invoked the Holy Spirit to guide their deliberations by chanting an ancient hymn.
The procession entered through the large main doorway in the east wall of the Sistine Chapel. For most of the cardinals, it was their first time inside the chapel since preparations for the conclave began. The vast rectangular space measured one hundred and thirty-four feet in length, forty-four feet in width, and sixty-eight feet in height to the top of the flattened barrel vault that soared over the space — the exact dimensions of Solomon’s Temple, as described in the Old Testament. Six tall, arched windows punctured the upper half of the walls running the length of the chapel, drawing the light of heaven down onto the marble floor below. The walls flowed up between the windows to form the triangular webs and pendentives supporting the ceiling.
A chancel wall consisting of a low barrier topped with a gilded screen divided the chapel floor into two unequal spaces. The procession filed into the smaller space set aside for the laity to observe mass, then through the opening in the chancel screen into the sanctuary surrounding the altar.
Architecturally unremarkable, the voluminous space inside the tan brick building became instead a canvas for the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance. In the tradition of the day, the chapel’s ornamentation was thematically divided into three epochs. Above the cardinal electors soared Michelangelo’s famous ceiling on which prophets, sibyls, and the forefathers of Christ framed illustrated scenes drawn from Genesis. Frescos depicting the life of Moses decorated the long south wall, balanced by the life of Christ on the north.
Directly before the cardinals, as if they needed further reminder of the importance of their task, the resplendent figure of Christ the Judge soared above the altar. The Last Judgment, a monumental fresco that covered the entire western wall of the chapel and consumed five years of Michelangelo’s life, depicted Christ surrounded by the saints and the elect, and beneath them the damned. Before the altar stood a long table and a lectern. There, beneath Michelangelo’s towering masterpiece, the ballots would be counted and the name of the new Pope revealed.