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.