51 pages • 1 hour read
Robert HarrisConclave
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Politics of Religion
Although the popular contemporary view advocates for separate church and state, it is impossible to divorce politics from religion as religion is fundamentally political. Harris’s novel demonstrates this through the framing device of the conclave, in which the frontrunners and the eventual winner of the election illustrate the role that politics plays in shaping not only the leadership of the Catholic Church but the lives of the people who devote themselves to it.
The novel begins with Lomeli’s discovery that the late pope lost faith in the church. Although this crisis has no direct impact on the conclave, it looms over Lomeli and influences his management of the election. Troubled by his crisis of faith, Lomeli is compelled to investigate the pope’s personal effects, which reveal the hypocrisy of the Church’s cardinal-administrators. They live luxuriously while the cardinals overseeing the world’s poorest missions cave in to the Tremblay’s promise of financial support in exchange for their votes. Very few of the cardinals, unlike Benítez, actually know what it means to serve the Church, since they benefit from its vast power and access to resources.
This reframes the discursive aspect of the power struggle that has been taking place throughout the conclave. The frontrunners represent two possible directions the Church could take: traditionalism or liberalism. The election demands a choice—either the Church harkens back to its oldest traditions and strengthens its integrity through unity of thought and action, or it responds to the times by radically revising those traditions to become more accessible to today’s faithful. Benítez’s presence at the conclave challenges these factions by asking them how their respective proposals might resonate with the victims of sexual abuse, war, and poverty. If anything, Tedesco’s traditionalist stance only upholds the anti-Islamic sentiment that has led to turmoil in the Middle East. Adeyemi’s posturing as the first Black pope has erased his complicity in the sex abuse scandals that the Church has historically swept under the rug. Bellini’s continued support of Tremblay as the perfect compromise candidate speaks to his willingness to look past the cardinal’s lack of integrity. Rather than use the Church’s resources to aid the faithful, Bellini only wants to forward his agenda of reforms within the Church, which remains irrelevant to a world dealing with the long-term effects of late capitalism.
Symbolically, Benítez’s election as pope suggests that the right way forward may require a shift in focus altogether. Rather than prioritize the question of how the Church should conduct and administer its liturgies to the faithful, the Church should reflect on its role as an institution with considerate power and influence in the world. Benítez’s missionary work was less about embedding the Word of God in the minds of abuse and war survivors than making sympathetic connections with those people. This politically conscious approach to religion considers the realities and the needs of the Church-at-large.
Human Ambition and Divine Providence
The conclave is a contest of wills, specifically between human ambition and divine providence. Although Lomeli uses reason to eliminate frontrunners and arrive at his choice, the surprising result of each ballot speaks to his interpretation that a force greater than the conclave is directing its outcome. Harris argues that human ambition is humble and futile against the whims of a world that greatly outsizes it.
From the Catholic perspective, anything that happens in the world aligns with God’s plan for the final victory of good over evil. Benítez says as much when he explains his reason for foregoing gender confirmation surgery in Switzerland. He accepts that being intersex is part of God’s plan for his life, encouraging him to carry on his mission as an intersex missionary, illustrating the abandonment of his ego and his complete submission to the will of divine providence. When he arrives at the conclave, he rejects the possibility that he could be elected because he is a newcomer. Once he is elected, he immediately accepts, understanding everything that has happened as part of God’s plan.
In stark contrast, the other frontrunners in the conclave act primarily according to their ego, each believing that they are individually destined to represent God’s will. The most extreme example of this is Tremblay, who is so devoted to his ambition that he does not represent any specific stance or direction for the Church. He is more of a politician than a true clergyman, making all compromises to win support across the board. Likewise, he shirks responsibility whenever accusations are levied against him. Most notably, when Lomeli exposes him for sabotaging Adeyemi’s chances at the papacy, Tremblay hides behind the name of the late pope, who cannot defend himself. Tremblay’s oversized ambition turns him into the lowest form of candidate, one who will bend the truth to his advantage and wipe his hands clean of any fault he willingly commits.
Even Lomeli, whose moral integrity is much stronger than Tremblay’s, finds himself humbled at the first sign of his own ambition. The moment he votes for himself, explosions rock through the Vatican, making Lomeli initially think that God has personally voiced disapproval of Lomeli’s choice. When Lomeli gains a clearer perspective of the situation, he understands that the coordinated attack wasn’t meant to discourage him from becoming pope but to remind him of what is at stake for the Church and the future pontiff. He forgets the flaw of ambition in the final ballot, even going so far as to consider his papal name. The fantasy of his papacy is the last demonstration of the ego he works so hard to suppress. The fact that Benítez wins is the final humiliation of that ego. The world is simply too big and too complex to align itself to any one man’s wishes.
The Challenge of Faith
Lomeli’s personal narrative arc is defined by a crisis of faith. He has lost the ability to find meaning in his prayer, which initially drives him toward monasticism. When the pope rejects his resignation, Lomeli is challenged to confront the meaning of faith. By the end of the novel, he arrives at an understanding that disturbs his soul but urges him to continue in his ecclesiastical role.
Lomeli’s loss of faith stems from an inability to find signs of his impact on the world in the late stages of his life. In Chapter 5, it is revealed that his vow of celibacy inspired him to think nobly of himself when he was younger. Following his experience of prostate cancer, the glory of that feeling has faded, making it impossible to return to. As an older person, he does not feel there is much room for him to affect the world or shape it in a way that feels meaningful. For Lomeli, the reward of faith is meaning, and because he does not have it, he loses faith.
This is different from the loss of faith the late pope experienced at the end of his life. The nature of that crisis is one of the overarching mysteries Lomeli attempts to solve, believing it will help him to address his own. To his surprise, the pope’s loss of faith did not stem from an absence of meaning but from an incongruence of act and intention. His observation that the Church leaders were acting in ways that contradicted their religion’s central beliefs indicated that it was time for the Church as he knew it to end. This weighs on Lomeli’s conscience, especially given his role in the conclave. Knowing that he has the means to weed out the actors who could engender further corruption within the Church, Lomeli may finally reach the meaning that restores his faith.
Lomeli is inclined to believe that his narrative arc is completed when Benítez is elected pope. However, the discovery that Benítez is intersex challenges his sense of tradition, urging him to look past his notions of who should qualify to become pope. Benítez’s election is not meant to distort or humiliate the Church but to remind him that meaning is not the objective of faith. Even as he nears the end of his life, Lomeli is reminded that faith is a lifelong engagement with something he cannot understand. That lack of understanding extends to his present stage of life, which sees him ushering in the kind of change the late pope hoped for and enacting precisely the sort of impact he wanted to make. In Harris’s view, to believe in something is to be disturbed by it. In this way, faith remains dynamic throughout one’s life, never falling into stillness unless that stillness moves one to action.
Related Titles
By Robert Harris
