that's the sound of me nope-ing

🟡 (d.u.) 1944: lomeli is born, in genoa, italy

note: this is based on lomeli being 75 years old during the year of the conclave

🟢 (d.u.) 1952: vincent is born in manila, philippines, to very poor parents

note: this is based on vincent being 67 years old during the year of the conclave

🟡 (d.u.) 1958: lomeli is in a seminary in genoa; he is ordained in the 1960s

‼️ 1962–1965: the second vatican council

🟢 ???: vincent enters the san carlos seminary in san pedro (now guadalupe), makati city

note: san carlos seminary is the archdiocese seminary of manila

‼️ january–march 1970: the first quarter storm in the philippines

‼️ august 21, 1971: the plaza miranda bombing, which is used by president ferdinand marcos to suspend the writ of habeas corpus throughout the country

‼️ september 21, 1972: martial law is declared in the philippines by ferdinand marcos, ending his second term as president and starting his tenure as a dictator

🟢 (d.u.) 1978: vincent is ordained by cardinal jaime sin, archbishop of manila

🟢 ???: vincent begins his first ministry at the santo niño de tondo, in the district of tondo, city of manila

‼️ august 1978: pope paul vi dies, pope john paul i is elected

note: 🟡 lomeli is in the vatican at this time and remembers viewing paul vi's body

‼️ october 1978: pope john paul i dies, pope john paul ii is elected

‼️ january 17, 1981: martial law is lifted, timed to coincide with john paul ii's visit to the philippines and ronald reagan's election as us president, but ferdinand marcos retains all his powers as dictator

note: because this is a simplified timeline, i will not explain why reagan's election is significant to philippine politics

‼️ february 17–22, 1981: john paul ii visits the philippines

‼️ august 21, 1983: ferdinand marcos' longtime political opponent senator benigno aquino is assassinated upon his return from overseas exile, unifying the opposition against the dictatorship

‼️ february 22–25, 1986: following the 1986 snap elections, people power revolution ousts ferdinand marcos and ends the marcos dictatorship

🟢 ???: vincent begins his second ministry at our lady of the abandoned parish in sta. ana, a district in the city of manila

note: this church was established by the order of the friars minor (the franciscans), and they continue to administer it

🟢 ???: vincent establishes the project of the blessed santa margherita de cortona, eight shelters for homeless girls

notes on vincent's time in manila: both churches he served at were in the city of manila, under the diocese of manila. when speaking about vincent, cardinal mendoza also mentions san andres, payatas, and bagong silangan. san andres is another district in the city of manila, sharing a border with sta. ana. payatas and bagong silangan are in quezon city, which, until the 2000s, were also under the diocese of manila. payatas and bagong silangan are now under the diocese of novaliches.

‼️ april 7–july 19, 1994: the genocide in rwanda, zaire's neighboring country

note: this is included in the timeline as a precursor event to the first congo war

‼️ october 24, 1996: start of the first congo war

‼️ 1997: zaire is renamed (had its name changed back to) "democratic republic of congo"

‼️ october 29, 1996: christopher munzihirwa, archbishop of bukavu, is assassinated

note: the diocese of bukavu is located in south kivu, drc, a major site of conflict in the first and second congo wars, as it shares a border with rwanda

🟢 (d.u.) 1996: vincent requests to be transferred to zaire, does missionary work

‼️ may 16, 1997: end of the first congo war

‼️ august 2, 1998: start of the second congo war

‼️ july 18, 2003: end of the second congo war

🟢 ???: vincent sets up a catholic hospital in bukavu to assist female victims of the genocidal sexual violence perpetrated during the first and second congo wars

note: this fictional hospital has a real-life equivalent, the pentecostal panzi hospital and foundation, founded in 1999 by nobel peace prize awardee dr denis mukwege

‼️ july 2006: joseph kabila is elected president of the drc in the first multi-party elections since 1960

‼️ march 20, 2003: the usa invades iraq, beginning the iraq war

🟡 ~2003–2005: lomeli is recalled from his position as the apostolic nuncio for the permanent observer of the holy see to the united nations in new york city to serve as the secretary for relations with foreign states by john paul ii, who gives him his current pectoral cross

notes: i put down 2003 as the tentative start of this period, because lomeli notes that john paul ii's parkinsons was already advanced at the time. btw much in the same way that there are 2 nuncios in the usa (the nuncio to the usa is in washington, d.c.), there are 2 holy see permanent observers to the un—the other one is in geneva, for the un hq and and other specialized institutions located there.

‼️ april 2005: pope john paul ii dies, pope benedict xvi is elected 🟡 lomeli's first conclave

note: lomeli mentions that the current conclave is his (and cardinal krasinki's) third conclave

‼️ 2011: the usa officially withdraws from iraq

‼️ february 2013: pope benedict xvi resigns, the holy father is elected* 🟡 lomeli's second conclave

note: lomeli remembers that the holy father was elected on the fifth ballot

⚠️ * note: in the book, tedesco complains "Another ten years like the last ten – another Holy Father like the last one". this seems to indicate that the holy father has been pope for ten years (tedesco, as ratzinger's protégé, would not have been complaining about benedict xvi's papacy). either benedict xvi's papacy in the book ended earlier (in book canon he also resigned) or the book actually takes place in...2023?

‼️ december 2016: joseph kabila's second presidential term officially expires, but he does not leave office until the 2018 elections

🟢 (d.u.) 2017: vincent meets the holy father, who is on a papal tour of africa. he is created monsignor*

note: based on the provided dates in the book, vincent was in the drc/africa for at least 20 years. it is in africa that he got used to not having electricity and having candles around him at night

* monsignor is not an official appointive rank within the clerical hierarchy like bishop or cardinal. it's more of a papal honorary title, although exactly what that honor entails depends on the prevailing rules at the time he was given the title. starting from this point, vincent would be called monsignor benítez in formal or official address

‼️ 2013–2017: war in iraq, involving the islamic state/isil/isis/daesh

‼️ december 2017: start of the (still-ongoing, as of 2025) islamic state insurgency in iraq

🟢 (d.u.) 2018: the position of archbishop of baghdad falls vacant. the holy father rejects the nominees of the congregation of bishops and appoints vincent as the archbishop

🟢 ???: vincent is featured in a magazine while he is archbishop, as remembered by lomeli

🟢 ???: vincent is injured in a car-bomb attack in iraq, goes to the hospital, is fully examined by a doctor for the first time, and finds out he's intersex

note: the book's exact phrasing is "In January this year, following minor injuries sustained in a car-bomb attack, Archbishop Benítez offered his resignation on medical grounds …". based on this, i'm not willing to declare that the car-bomb attack was also in january of 2019

🟢 ??? (shortly after the previous event): the doctor who treated* vincent dies in a bombing

* vincent uses the word "treated", so my interpretation is that the doctor who treated his car-bombing injuries in the hospital was also the doctor who fully examined him and first discovered him being intersex. also based on what vincent says, only one doctor knew he was intersex, so i assume the doctor didn't record their findings anywhere and there were no other doctors/nurses/etc present while vincent was being treated/examined

🟡 2019: lomeli is 75 years old and is experiencing some kind of spiritual insomnia

🟢 january 2019: vincent offers his resignation on health grounds to the holy father in a letter, then is invited to vatican city* by the holy father and they have a private meeting with the holy father where he withdrew his resignation (both the resignation letter and the note saying it was withdrawn, are in vincent's file with the congregation of bishops)

note: please see next event's footnote for more discussion on this

* robert harris is clearly aware that vincent, a philippine passport holder, requires visas to go to many countries, so ask him and not me how vincent, from iraq, got a religious*** visa to enter italy** to get to vatican city

** vatican city does not issue its own visas, and vincent, at this point in time, is not entitled to hold a vatican passport

*** or a tourism/business/invitation visa..............the point here is that third-country visas are way more difficult to obtain than getting one from the embassy located in the country where one holds the passport

🟢 (d.u.) 2019: vincent is issued a return ticket to go to a clinic specializing in "gender reassignment" in geneva, switzerland, and files a visa application to that effect, but he changes his mind and cancels his appointment the night before he is due to fly out, and returns to baghdad*

* the events of vincent's attempted resignation are told piece-meal in the book, but to the best of my understanding: after finding out he is intersex: vincent writes and sends a resignation letter to the vatican, on medical grounds but not specifying why ➡️ the holy father finds out and invites vincent to the vatican to discuss his resignation ➡️ during this meeting, vincent "in the end" reveals that he is intersex, and the holy father lets him decide what he wants to do (they pray together for guidance) ➡️ vincent decides to get "a surgery to correct a fusion of the labia majora and minora, and a clitoropexy" (it's not clear if at the time he decided, he knew that these were the specific procedures he "must" undergo) ➡️ the pope's private office buys him the return** plane tickets to geneva and vincent submits his swiss visa application (lomeli mentions that this application, on file somewhere beyond vatican control, is a possible smoking gun); it's not stated who made the appointment for the preliminary consultation with the clinic, which was under an assumed name ➡️ vincent decides not to go to geneva, withdraws his resignation, and returns to baghdad instead (implying all of these happened in the vatican? ** the plan was for him to return to rome/the vatican after his consult?) ➡️ his resignation and its withdrawal are filed with the vatican

🟢 (d.u.) 2019: a couple of months before the holy father dies (august?), he raises the possibility with bellini to appoint vincent as a cardinal. bellini advises him against it

🟢 (d.u.) 2019: the holy father changes the law on in pectore appointments, essentially so that the appointments do not lapse/expire if the appointed cardinals are not made public (published? in a consistory?) before the appointing pontiff dies

🟢 (d.u.) 2019: vincent is created a cardinal in pectore. he has a letter of appointment from the holy father addressed to the archdiocese of baghdad, and a seal of office

note: the book explains the three ranks of cardinals. vincent is almost certainly a cardinal-priest, as he has a diocese

🟡 september 17, 2019: the final meeting between the holy father and lomeli

🟢 october 19, 2019: the holy father dies. this is also the date of the report on tremblay's simony*

note: the holy father is discovered by wozniak at around 11:30 pm (of the previous day) and is pronounced dead at 12:12 am. his official date of death is october 19. lomeli leaves his apartment to go to the pope's bedroom before 2:00 am, and is the last to arrive

* it's not explained in the book why the report is dated october 19, when the holy father confronted tremblay on october 18

🟢 october–november 2019: the holy father's funeral and almost daily congregations (meetings) of the college of cardinals

notes: it's not stated in the book, but part of this period is novendiales, the 9-day mourning period for the dead pope. all cardinals present in rome, electors or not, are expected to attend the general congregations. vincent misses all of these events, for obvious reasons, but lomeli also notes that tedesco steered clear of rome since the funeral, implying that he too did not attend the congregations*

* later in the book, on the last day of the conclave, tedesco accuses lomeli of turning the conclave into a congregation when the latter lets the cardinals discuss the terrorist attacks

🟢 november 6, 2019: vincent lands in beirut, lebanon, and sleeps at the arrivals lounge

notes: rome is one hour behind beirut. it's not clear how circuitous the route vincent takes to get from baghdad to beirut, but the most direct flight is under 2 hours

🟢 november 7, 2019: the night before the first day of conclave

⚠️ note: the book says that this nov. 7 is a sunday. in the Real Life calendar, november 7, 2019 was a thursday

🟦 3–4:?? pm: vincent arrives in rome, heads to vatican city

note: the most direct flight between beirut and rome takes 3 hours and 35 minutes

🟦 5:45 pm: the then-last cardinal arrives at casa santa marta

🟦 ~6:00 pm: lomeli meets with wozniak

🟦 6:?? pm: vincent arrives at casa santa marta, and meets the vatican characters for the first time*

* lomeli introduces vincent to bellini with a "This is Cardinal Bellini, whom I think you may know." and vincent replies, "Cardinal Bellini? I’m afraid not." later vincent tells lomeli that the holy father told him that bellini is "brilliant but neurotic", implying that he did, in fact, know who bellini was

note: lomeli wakes up from his nap and notes that it's almost 8 pm. he stays in his room for more than 30 minutes (he spends nearly half an hour kneeling on his prie-dieu) until it is time for dinner

🟦 8:?? pm: dinner, where vincent is introduced to the college of cardinals, and meets the cardinals from the philippines and africa, for the first time

notes on this dinner: vincent is hugged by cardinal muamba, archbishop emeritus of kinshasa, drc, who invites vincent to sit with the table of eight african cardinals. cardinal nakitanda is in this table. adeyemi is seated two tables away and lomeli observes that he keeps looking at vincent with puzzled irritation.

🟢 november 8, 2019: first day of voting, the first ballot. it's rainy

🟦 10:?? am–12:?? pm: the missa pro eligendo romano pontifice. lomeli delivers his homily and is so stressed out by the responses that he misses lunch (he had previously missed breakfast)

🟦 2:30 pm: the cardinals board the minibuses to the sistine chapel

🟦 4:46 pm: the cardinals are officially sequestered in the chapel

🟦 5:00 pm: the first ballot (vincent vote: 1)

🟦 8:30 pm: dinner

🟦 ??:?? pm: at the lobby of casa santa marta, vincent leaves the group he is speaking with to talk to lomeli. vincent tells lomeli that he voted for him

🟢 november 9, 2019: second day of voting, the second to fifth ballots

🟦 9:?? am: the cardinals head to the sistine chapel

🟦 ??:?? am: the second ballot (vincent votes: 2)

🟦 10:45 am: the last cardinal finishes voting in the second ballot

🟦 ??:?? am: the third ballot (vincent votes: 2)

🟦 12:37 pm: black smoke from the third ballot

🟦 12:50 pm: lunch is ongoing. adeyemi makes a scene with shanumi

🟦 2:45 pm: the fourth ballot (vincent votes: 5)

🟦 ~4:?? pm: the fifth ballot (vincent votes: 4)

🟦 6:22 pm: black smoke from fifth ballot

🟦 ~7:?? pm: lomeli is visited by bellini and sabbadin 

🟦 30 minutes later, before dinner: lomeli visits vincent in his room, to ask vincent not to vote for him

note: vincent says that it's his habit to meditate for an hour at this time of day

🟦 ??:?? pm: dinner. vincent sits with the "anglophones" (uk, usa cardinals are memtioned)

note: lomeli spends this dinner contemplating (and accepting as true) vincent's accusation that lomeli spent the last 30 years worshipping the church

🟢 november 10, 2019: third day of voting, the sixth to eighth ballots

🟦 6:30 am: lomeli leaves his room to photocopy the simony report

🟦 ??:?? am: breakfast, with the simony report. vincent gets food for lomeli and sits next to him

🟦 ~9:?? am: o'malley tells lomeli that vincent was issued a return ticket to geneva for a hospital visit

🟦 ~10:00 am: the sixth ballot (vincent votes: 19) 

🟦 ??:?? am: the seventh ballot. for the first time lomeli thinks about voting for vincent, but decides not to, instead voting for himself

🟦 11:20 am: the explosion happens. vincent identifies it as a car bomb. voting resumes

🟦 12:42 pm: voting in the seventh ballot concludes. only tedesco, lomeli, and vincent get votes (vincent votes: 24)

🟦 ??:?? pm: in the dining room, lomeli informs the cardinals of the circumstances of the explosion. vincent asks to speak, then insists on speaking despite tedesco's objections

note: vincent speaks twice: first, his campaign speech for lomeli. then, after tedesco talks, he speaks up again with his experience as archbishop of baghdad. the cardinals clap for him after his second speech.

🟦 ??:?? pm: the eighth ballot. lomeli votes for vincent for the first time

- "we find everything in rome but we couldn't find long, interesting hallways, they were surprisingly white and plain" (on why they built the casa santa marta hallway set)

- "i don't want to cut away, i want to look into [ralph's] eyes, i want to look into his face, i want to lose myself in his face"

- "i want to have that robe and put it on" (referring to thomas' robes, after his homily)

- "sergio ... had a big red coat on, feeling very ostentatious, he's a show-off, and others are almost more protestant, ralph would be a bit more protestant, you know, quieter in his attire"

- edward specifically storyboarded the balloting scenes because he was worried they would be boring and repetitive

- "but the dynamic between stanley and ralph is great because they're friends, they're great—they love each other, they really respect each other, but they're such different actors. and that scene that you just saw, they were both pretty—felt like suddenly like why are they so—why is this scene taking so long, or why is it difficult to shoot. i think because they've so much respect for each other, that ... even if they don't want to, they're competing, they're combating. they want to impress the other. ralph wants to, i don't know, he probably will say it's total crap (laughs) what i'm saying, but ralph wants to be good for stanley, and wants to be, in a way, better, or say, like, he wants to have the respect of the other, and say like 'ralph thinks i'm a good actor', he thinks it anyway but deep down inside, you know insecurity's coming, and deep down inside you want to be good, you want to be as good or better than the other and so they were, kind of, little battling each other, it was very subtle but underneath it, it was there" ("rpf is fine" -edward berger)

- "he rehearses latin like a maniac" (guess who this is)

- "if he wouldn't have this [acting], again he'd probably protest this so don't play this for him, but if he wouldn't have this, he'd basically die, you know? he needs it, he needs it to survive, it's total fulfillment" (guess who part two)

- "[stanley's] personality is just 180 degrees different. he jokes around, he comes, he does a take, 'ah that was fine, let's move on,' where ralph would want another one, stanley would just (gibberish/imitates stanley's noises) it doesn't really matter, let's just move on"

- stanley at some point worried that he was being too american while the rest of the ensemble were all "proper cardinals" and edward had the same worries about stanley, not the being too american but the not giving the behind the eyes on-set (like ralph, edward's gold standard of seeing into the soul etc) but edward stopped worrying when they started editing because it was all there, edward felt like an "insensitive klutz of a director" for not seeing the "miracle of an actor" like stanley who one sees in the movie, not live

- edward stops talking so that the viewer can properly appreciate lucian's big scene, but interrupts to talk again with an "impatient, too impatient to be quiet, you can watch the movie some other time"

- "lucian isn't wearing a cross, which somehow makes him feel more naked, more bare. ralph is wearing his cross, the band around his neck where the cross is suspended on and it's just a big difference"

- the young pope mention: that show had a lot of cardinal costumes that the conclave production could have used, but didn't for reasons that edward and costume designer lisy christl have discussed elsewhere and everywhere

- "brian ... a wonderful actor from ireland, brings a slightly comedic tone to his performance here" + edward thinks brian "beautifully" did the overlong pause before ray tries to talk to thomas about the tremblay business after joshua's downfall + "i'm so thankful for that [brian's comedic tone] because it lightens up the theoretically heavy proceedings" + "so him and sergio are the humorous ones, which i'm grateful for"

- edward tells the story of how a cardinal in england let ralph put on his robe (and "ralph looked wonderful in it"), which alarmed edward because he could tell ralph was getting attached to the real robes, when the real robes didn't look good

- the location of thomas-aldo-giulio stairwell scene was a military school in rome

- edward thinks the real casa santa marta is "ugly"

- edward had to "coax ralph" into accepting that they're not gonna be totally accurate to the real conclave, vatican, clerical dress, etc

- ralph initially did not like his conclave costume because it was "thick, it's heavy, it's not the real thing", and even though he eventually "grew into it", "once in a while he had to take a jab and say, like, 'this is thick fabric, i'm hot under it,' you know, like, he was craving to have the real—real thing, but other actors like sergio was like, i love my costume because you know what, it feels like a cardinal's costume, look at them, how beautiful that red is ... sergio, john, stanley, they all embraced it [the conclave robes]"

- "we all end up in a body bag"

- edward discusses his lens choices for the film, really technical but interesting for those curious about that (and conclave was shot on the RED v-raptor because the DOP/cinematographer stéphane fontaine liked that camera)

- john's big scene was "complicated" because many of the extras in the scene didn't speak english and didn't know what was going on (probably couldn't react quickly to john and ralph's english dialogue?)

- the morning dining-room scene was shot in a kitchen/canteen in a military base

- edward points out that thomas and aldo's last scene together deliberately didn't have any repeating shot angles because he didn't like going back and forth

- they shot the explosion scene twice because the first time didn't look "real enough"

- "i think everyone's favorite new discovery is sergio ... because he's just so authentic and that's the italian [language], and it made ralph speak more italian ... where else are we such an international community than the vatican, they come from all over the world, and they have 50 different languages, and italian unites them"

- carlos's monologue was reshot after the movie was "locked and done" because: 1) they had $400,000 left over from the budget, 2) "the world had changed after our shooting because of the attacks in israel and just the world felt differently, and i felt slightly that the speech, whatever carlos says here, what we gave him needed to—we don't want to reference that because it has nothing to do with the movie, it's much too big a topic to cram into this movie, but somehow the attitude, the feeling had changed and so we needed to somehow rewrite the scene" & 3) carlos originally did his monologue in english, but inspired by sergio saying his monologue in italian, his speech was rewritten in (mexican) spanish (fyi, the conclave screenplay available online already reflects the version of the speech carlos says in the movie, so it's uncertain exactly what was rewritten in the reshoot, apart from the language shift)

- the scene immediately after carlos' monologue, the cardinals gathering and nuns walking in the courtyard, was another addition thanks to the leftover money, and was put in to allow vincent's speech to sink in

- the overhead shot of the cardinals under the umbrellas was shot with around 30 actors, duplicated in post-production, because they didn't have enough extras

- some digital assets from the young pope were licensed and used in the film (probably the CG parts of the sistine chapel?)

- "i love the crack in the glasses of john ... by the way, it might even be his idea just to, at least the sitting, that he stay seated, that he sort of, this broken man, that's definitely john's idea" (during the cardinals' standing ovation for vincent)

- the first shot they shot in the movie was the wide shot of thomas and ray, silhouetted by the windows

- "i'm very glad we put the wound [on ralph] afterwards for the next scenes [after they shot the first scene, where they didn't put the wound makeup on ralph yet], it gives him a sort of vulnerability and a certain physicality also of the attack"

- edward has some really great commentary about carlos in vincent and thomas' room of tears scene, about him standing his ground with veteran actors, the rehearsal being on a sunday of just carlos and ralph in a room going over and talking about each line, "it was important for me that you look into his [carlos'] face while he says his lines, and you believe the past that he is telling you, but ... you don't also see it from the beginning that you look at him and, go, like, oh, yeah, i mean, there's something more complex to this character. he needed to be just a normal guy, just one of us. but when he tells his story you kinda look at him, oh yeah i can imagine, that makes sense. and it was only carlos that was able to do that"