Conclave.

The Pope is dead. Long live the Pope. I know, it usually dead kings we are referring to when we use this expression, but hey, they are all earthly reigns after all. A Pope passes and one hundred and thirty seven cardinals gather to elect from within their own ranks a successor to the Seat of Peter. Cloistered behind closed doors they attempt to set aside the natural guile of man and pick a worthy fellow to carry on the legacy of the earthly representative of Christs church as interpreted by those of the Catholic faith. Its surely a corrupted endeavor from the very beginning given all involved are but men despite the elevation from the tawdry day to day implied by their rank. A cardinal mistake perhaps...
            Just before the doors close and the assembled cardinals sequester themselves in order to choose the next Pope a mysterious one hundred and thirty eighth cardinal arrives and throws the predicted outcome to the winds. Its a great tale, well researched and an engagingly unfolding exploration of what happens when the earthly conspire to contribute to the heavenly.I tried to tell a tale rifting on these concerns way back in the day when I worked for a while for an American publisher. The history of the Vatican is the checkered history of a small city state. Its a history rich in detail, subjectively a string of far reaching notions of control through presumptive morality. You may well call a spade a spade but in the Catholic faith A Pope is The Pope.
             When in Rome...