#I understand ATPM or Spotlight may have not been foundational pieces of media to you but they were to ME

[cheshirecatqueerio]

Conclave journalism AU/ canon divergence

Thomas Lawrence still faces his crisis of faith in the last several years of the late pope's pontifcate. He asks to be permitted to resign and join an order. The late pope denies him. However, Lawrence's difficulties with prayer and doubts about God get so severe, he simply quits the Church altogether. In the secular world he lands somewhere in academia, not as a professor but maybe as a researcher or administrative assistant somewhere like the Oxford Psalms Network. My guy has had to do at least 10 years of theological education to get a doctorate in canon law, academia is the major other thing he can do. So he's involved with the Church sphere but very tangentially. Mainly in the archives. He's not happy per say but his self- flagellation complex sees this as a reap what you sow situation so he's trying to make his piece with his middling job till he inevitably hits certain retirement age.

He has a falling out with Bellini before he leaves, as he in his 'I shall not burden those near me' mindset doesn't really explain what is going on, obliquely mentions the desire to join an order and then slinks off seemingly in the middle of a random night leaving only a highly effusive but not at all explanatory note thanking Aldo for his years of friendship and peace. Aldo is understandably pissed, calls Thomas and tries to hash things out. Tells Thomas to his face that being gay and dedicating his life to the clergy has not exactly been smooth sailing but he worked it out so what gives? Thomas in his desire for martyrdom refuses to elaborate on anything which makes Aldo madder. Bellini eventually hears about some of Thomas' doubts from the Holy Father, and while he gets it, he still thinks Thomas' disappearance means their friendship ment more to Aldo than Thomas so he's not feeling very charitable and remains mad. Also, Thomas' suddenly departure leaves Aldo with a promotion he very much doesn't want and the Holy Father's years are numbered so he doesn't reach out to Thomas. Thomas thinks he's ruined their friendship and that Aldo spends 23 hours of the day thinking about how much Thomas disappointed him (he ignores the fact that being Dean simply doesn't leave one with the mental capacity for this) so as penance he gives Aldo space. By the time the Conclave comes around they are very much not talking. Aldo contemplates reaching out to commemorate the late Holy Father but then finds out running a conclave takes 110% of his brain capacity, so he never does.

Meanwhile, Vincent Benitez resigned from being a bishop a while back. He consults the late Holy Father and while he refuses the surgery he also has a mild crisis of identity and new thoughts about how the Church treats people like him. While the hysterectomy offer from the Holy Father was well intentioned, the more he thinks about the less he can reconcile his perception of the Church as an institution for good, his role among it, and it's historic role propagating violence againts intersex and trans people. The hysterectomy isn't about affirming Benitez's feelings or identity it's about fixing what the Church deems an aberration to the binary and remodeling him back into an acceptable servant for the institution. However, upon quiting the Church Vincent continues to do what he has always done best- he helps people. He uses his experience helping surviors of GBV in Kinshasa. He joins UNAMA and works on the issues of women's rights and integration pre-Taliban rule. In his work due to his compassionate manner the women he works with confide in him about the things that are happening. He sees not only the violence of the Taliban but also the means by which IGOs, NGOs, and the American presence are complicit in perpetrating human rights abuses. He sees that sometimes exposing these structures is useful to help survivors. So he befriends a couple of locally based journalists and sometimes helps critique the systems the Western media likes to stay quite about. He helps track down how America's armed forces defend himan rights abusers and preparation state violence in the name of fighting the Taliban (think this piece by the NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/briefing/afghanistan-war-us-kandahar.html). Then the Taliban takes over again and he is notorious for his work on women's rights so the UNAMA politely tells him he is going to be evacuated because he can do better work remotely and will be resigned elsewhere. Vincent hates this but he cannot not acquiesce. So he is working to try and get Afghani families resettled with the UNHCR when he gets a strange email. He receives the email about a month before the Holy Father's death and it only includes a "Dear Vincent, I think this may be useful to you," and an excel file titled TremF, and an email adress for a thomas.lawrence@theology.ox.ac.uk signed the Holy Father's first name. Intially he thinks this is a spam email, but he tries to click the excel file only to find it's corrupted. He tries to email the sending adress but the message bounces back saying the account has been terminated and recipient cannot be found. Vincent has a job to do and a huge amount of people to resettle and state organizations to lobby so he forgets about the email.

Until, the Holy Father dies and Tremblay is elected pope. And Vincent has been out of the Church for about 14 years now, so he wouldn't think much of it except for that weird file name. And also most of the people who he works still involved with the Catholic Church with find Tremblay's election a bit weird because he's by no means a nobody but no one anticipated him to be pope over much more charismatic or diverse candidates like the Patriarch of Venice or Lagos. So on a whim, just in case, Vincent sends an email to that Thomas Lawrence explaining who he is bfrielfy that he got a strange email he is 90% sure is authentic from the late Holy Father and maybe this is nothing but Thomas' email was the only other part of the message and that he's not been a part of the Church for almost 15 years so it's a bit odd and does Thomas have any answers?

Miracle of all miracles Vincent's email reaches Thomas despite being out of organization, probably due his @unhcr.org. Thomas thinks this is very strange but also probably nothing. Nonetheless this Vincent seems like he is very polite and to assuge both his own conscience (he feels a bit guilty over how he left things with the Holy Father and is grieving) and honor Vincent's time spent reaching out to him, he tells Vincent he'll reach out to some people who still work at the Church. That's when things get stranger and stranger. At first he tries Archbishop Wozniak because he was in charge of all of the late Father's correspondence. Any messages or emails to Wozniak go unanswered. Some asking old staffers tells him Wozniak was removed as Perfect of the Papal Household after Tremblay's election. Worse, no one quite knows where he went, just that he is still ostensibly with the Church. So he asks after Ray, because they are still friends and Ray has always been competent and if he doesn't know what the email was he'll find Wozniak. But... Ray's also gone. He's been made a papal nuncio but no one will tell Thomas where. It's classified, allegedly for O'Malley safety, which in all 30 years of his time at the Church is a circumstance Thomas has never heard of. Lawrence writes back to Benitez reporting what he's found so far and that this is all very weird indeed and that this may be something.....

Finally, Lawrence reaches out to Aldo, who has been made Secretary of State, stepping down as Dean. Aldo feels a bit guilty about suspending his own candidacy early on (he suspects this was conterary to the wishes of the Holy Father who may have seen him as a successor) because he was busy running the damn Conclave and Tremblay approached him with a way to make sure Aldo never head to go through managing a conclave again and also positioned himself as an alternative to Tedesco. Sue him, he had a lot going on. Intially Bellini is happy to hear from Thomas, they may have not been close the past 4 years, but still a friendship of 30+ years. He's way less thrilled this is not a personal call and Thomas starts interrogating him about Tremblay's pontificate and the conclave (if Thomas wanted to be involved this badly he could have just stayed on). He also lacks the answers to most of Thomas' questions and thought Ray simply asked to be reassigned while Wozniak's work load was reduced due to escalating drinking problem (Aldo found the poor man passed out several times near the papal apartments after the Holy Father's passing). And also who in the world is this Vincent Benitez upstart who allegedly was tapped by the Holy Father intially to ask all these questions? Still, while not wanting to admit to Thomas why Tremblay had such a easy time consolidating Aldo's vote share of the liberal vote, he agrees to look into Wozniak's posting. Only to be stonewalled by Mandorff? So Aldo, despite strained relations gets back to Thomas to say something is definitely up, and now that he thinks about it Adeyemi's papal bid ended weirdly and that there was a nun from Lagos working in the Vatican kitchens for like a week during the Conclave who was rumored to have had a child with him? But he's not sure and also, angering him greatly, 70% sure that piece of information originated with Tedesco so someone (NOT Aldo) is going to need to follow up with him. And the nun appeared and disappeared under very opaque circumstances? Que Vincent and Thomas meeting up to try and figure out where out of 106 possible diplomatic postings Ray ended up, while Aldo tries to find things out in the Vatican without alerting Tremblay to his intentions.