Containing China by Christian Filostrat

Author:Christian Filostrat
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PIERRE KROFT LEGACY PUBLISHERS
Published: 2022-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

When the Cardinal Electors cast their votes, one auditor shook the oversized chalice to mix the ballots with two arthritic hands while the others looked on ready to pick up any shard should one fall.

The auditor removed one ballot at a time slowly almost rhythmically, opened it, and checked the name on the list with feeble hands shaking in the process. He then passed each ballot to the second auditor who checked the name on another list with lowered reading glasses making him appear right out of a Dickens novel. That auditor passed the ballot to the gladly benign looking third, who might be capable of speeding along the process. The last auditor scribbled a note on a final list and loudly announced the name on the ballot, so that all the electors could check their own rosters placed on a table centrally located in front of them.

The officiates then tabulated and proclaimed the results: “Cardinal Adia, 63; Cardinal Bezier 18; Cardinal Ricci, 12; Cardinal Stefano 11. The other nine votes were spread among various names. Three other cardinals verified the figures from the first ballots; and, having concurred, the electors took a second vote. The result was identical, and the vote was determined to be official. None of the nominees having received two-third of the votes; the election was inconclusive. A conclavist threaded the ballot papers through for the Camerlengo to take to the furnace they had installed two days before the opening of the conclave and placed near the chapel’s exit. The ballots and a fumera nera chemical would color the smoke black and inform the expectant crowd in St. Peter’s Piazza that the College of Electors’ vote had not produced a pope.

In the journal he was keeping for his report to the national Security Council, Cleavy recoiled at the lack of trust the church demonstrated toward its cardinals. He zeroed in on the plate used to deposit the ballot into the chalice. Why couldn’t they simply place the paper in the receptacle without the ceremonious middle step? He spoke to Cardinal Stefano about the inefficient system. Stefano told him bluntly that humans were weak, and the plate was a safeguard to defend against the sleight of hand a cardinal might engage in when placing the ballot in the chalice. Fraud was the hand of the devil, defeating the work of the church. Understanding human nature and knowledge of the danger kept Lucifer at bay. The daunting task of electing a pope behind the Bronze Doors, shut from the scrutinizing eyes of a public curious to witness the antiquated flawed process at work.

Cleavy was now so useful to Cardinal Stefano that Stefano considered him a confidante. He conveyed his appreciation by including Cleavy in everything that went on in the Sistine Chapel and approved both his methods and his analyses. When taking a break from discussion about the voting pattern developing in the conclave, they discussed Vatican art and the Sistine Chapel, its history before and after

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