In Rome, the bells ring dead, even if the churches are deserted. Closed for weeks, after which even at Easter the faithful had not been allowed to participate in the liturgy: the pandemic had been successful where Diocletian, Napoleon and the totalitarianisms of the twentieth century had failed.
After a week of agony at the Gemelli Polyclinic, the reigning pontiff gave his soul to God. The carabinieri and the Italian army from the day before prevent access to Via della Conciliazione and to the area in front of the Vatican basilica. The same happens in front of Santa Maria Maggiore and San Giovanni in Laterano, the "cathedral" of the pope. The television programming adapts to the severity of the event, as in 2005 when John Paul II died. Cardinal Camerlengo, a Northern European of just over seventy years of age, as his duty, presides over the period of the so-called vacant see at the death of the pontiff. He has as assistant adjunct a deputy chamberlain, not a cardinal, but endowed with an archiepiscopal character. The dean of the college of cardinals is even over eighty years old and cannot even participate in the next conclave. In the meantime, however, before talking about the election of the new Bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church, we need to think about the funeral of the deceased pope. The rage of the "pestiferous disease" calls for caution: no exposure of the body to the sight of the faithful, no delegation of heads of state and government, no massive participation of the cardinals and bishops, all of age and often with pathologies for which the germ responsible for the pandemic is potentially lethal.
The dean and the chamberlain lean towards a ceremony for a few, broadcast in streaming, with the end of the burial in the Vatican caves: as already in 1799 for Pius VI, led by Napoleon to Valence, solemn funerals are postponed to a better opportunity. Prudence suggests to the curial cardinals to pay filial homage to the body of the Bishop of Rome individually and to remain in their apartments until the opening of the conclave. The elder dean as traditionally agrees to celebrate the rite in the presence of the president of the Italian republic, a few representatives of the curia and almost all the diplomatic corps. Only a few minor crowned heads intervened in person, crossing half of Italy by car out of devotion to ancient values.
The almost 120 cardinal electors are summoned immediately: they have an average age of over 72 years and must move from the five continents, almost all from countries with a ban on entry and exit. In fact, one in ten, so to speak, "visit brand", partly fearing the consequences of the trip and partly because already prevented from having already contracted the virus.
Getting to Rome is far from easy: some Italian, French and German-speaking cardinals opt to travel by private car, accompanied only by a relative and / or secretary as a driver. The story of a cardinal who made almost five hundred kilometers driving alone ends up in newspapers all over the world. Is it a form of self-marketing? The cardinals who have to take intercontinental flights are forced to make many and very complicated stopovers to get to Fiumicino. Some land in Zurich and rent a minibus with driver, after confirming that he is wearing rigorously a surgical mask (containing ...) and protective gloves.
Upon arrival, all are put in isolation in single apartments with services and subjected to the swab to check if they are already infected. Thus, one of them is isolated as already suffering from the disease ... The hypothesis of subjecting everyone to quarantine to avoid lengthening the time and multiplying the risks is rejected. Meanwhile, the manifestation of symptoms in some of their companions and, subsequently, their positivity to repeated tests, leads two cardinals to self-exclusion from the conclave.
The bad mood winds in the college of cardinals, because the curia staff does not seem to care about the virus transmission before and during the conclave: a plan for risk management has never been prepared. On the other hand, the Vatican curia is an organism centuries old and full of ailments that is struggling to proceed in the XNUMXst century. The dean and his secretary turn to a specialized company to ensure a minimum of professionalism in risk management, but in their hearts they are not even sure of the goodness of the choice made.
Participation in the conclave in a closed environment, together with dozens of elderly people already potentially infected but above all physically fragile, is seen as a very dangerous obligation. Someone remembers the stories of the terrible summer conclave of 1978, with dozens of old cardinals without air conditioning in the poorly ventilated rooms, the suffocating heat and the fact that they were forced to share a few bathrooms. Someone else quotes St. John: “When you were younger you girded your robe by yourself, and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird your garment and take you where you don't want to ".
Teleconferences are multiplying to try to reach a decision before the ritual "extra omnes": one wonders who to vote because the presence in the conclave is to be minimized. Is it better to elect a political curial or a good shepherd of souls? Is it better to focus on a young one with a long pontificate in front of him or an elderly one who does not last long and then elects one more thoughtfully after a few years?
Someone sagaciously quotes Benedict XIV, the famous Pope Lambertini, who said: “Do you want a saint? Choose Gotti. Do you want a statesman? Choose Aldobrandini. Do you want an honest son of a good woman? Choose me ".
The idea of electing a fifty-year-old pope seems prevalent, but some elderly cardinals remember the boutade between Cardinal Giuseppe Siri and the election to the Petrine throne in 1958: "Being so young at the time of the election that he would not be a holy father but an ... eternal father!"
Others remember, however, that the elderly and sickly archbishop of Perugia, Cardinal Pecci, had been elected to reign a few years and then survived for the beauty of twenty five.
One thing was clear to everyone: the new pope, once installed, would have to overcome the challenge of the pandemic, in the sense of not dying from it, even before focusing on the now post-Christian West and on developing countries. This led to the exclusion of anyone who, due to age and pathologies, could last on the Chair of San Pietro not long enough to return the cardinals before the threat of the virus had subsided.
There was to find someone who faced an unprecedented series of challenges, perhaps taking a personal risk. Here, as if by magic two names (a European less than sixty years old and an Asian a little older) begin to grow in preferences.
The chamberlain rubs his hands: perhaps in a few days that historic event so risky will have passed. Meanwhile, one of the cardinals has a fever and starts breathing heavily a few hours before mass Pro Eligendo Pontiff. A shiver runs between the cardinals: several of them have dangerously approached the confrere, who in the meantime has tested positive.
During mass, the small crowd appears dismayed. The cardinal dean clears his throat over and over again to attract attention, but the cardinals appear to be holding some faces, others intent on arguing with each other with frightened eyes, others still with their heads bowed in prayer.
The elderly bishop pauses for a moment during the homily: he shivers. He was reminded of a book read a few years earlier on the advice of the late pontiff, written by an English writer and presbyter and published in 1907: The Master of the World. In the last pages, the antagonist Giuliano Felsenburgh, in order to annihilate the Catholic Church, kills the cardinals in groups or individually, thus preventing the election of a new Bishop of Rome and beheading the hierarchy irreparably. What would have happened if they had all entered the conclave premises? An ancient prophecy comes to mind, which interrupts the reading of the homily again and exclaims: "Ne diruetur! It will not be destroyed! Brothers, if we meet in a conclave, a dangerous physical place in these conditions, we will have a high probability of contracting - all of us, many of whom are elderly and sick - the deadly disease, but above all we will infect the future pope, who is already among we and we will devastate him and the College of Cardinals. Now, precisely said college, that is, we the princes of the Roman Church, is sovereign in times of vacancy. I therefore ask you to express yourself by acclamation, by absolute majority, if you want to proceed with the election of the new pope always by acclamation and in this same place, as the Spirit will give us the faculty to do. If you agree, say: yes, in the name of God I want it! Thus, we will proceed immediately, at the end of the Holy Mass, to the election of the successor of Peter, bishop of Rome ... "
The reader will forgive this exercise in political fantasy, subsequent to that of February 21, with the aim of showing you, through a possible scenario, the devastating force of this pandemic on society and institutions. We took the liberty of not indicating dates and omitting names, even those of the pathogen and pandemic, because they deeply desired that all this should never happen.
