The conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV last May was interrupted when security officials detected an active mobile connection inside the Vatican's Sistine Chapel and discovered that one of the 133 cardinals present was carrying a cellphone.

According to the NY Post, the revelation comes from a new book by two veteran Vatican correspondents, Gerard O'Connell and Elisabetta Pique, titled "The Election of Pope Leo XIV," released Sunday. The book does not name the cardinal or suggest he had any motive for keeping his phone.

Cardinals participating in a conclave take a vow not to communicate with the outside world. They surrender their phones and all other communication devices for the duration of the proceedings. The Sistine Chapel itself was fitted with jamming equipment to prevent outside communications. Someone still managed to walk in with a live signal.

Inside the Two-Day Conclave

The cardinals gathered May 7-8, 2025, following the death of Pope Francis in April after 12 years leading the 1.4-billion-member Church. It was the most geographically diverse conclave in history, with clerics from 70 countries taking part.

Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a long-time Vatican official identified by many outlets as a leading favorite, immediately emerged as a frontrunner. But the book reveals that US Cardinal Robert Prevost already received between 20 and 30 votes on the very first ballot the evening of May 7.

By the fourth ballot on the afternoon of May 8, Prevost won with 108 votes. He would emerge as Pope Leo, the first pontiff from the United States, the 267th leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

Philippine Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, sometimes floated as a contender, only ever received fewer than 10 votes. In a small, human detail from the book, Tagle was sitting next to Prevost as the final vote was being tallied and offered the future pope a cough drop to soothe his throat.

Stranger Than Fiction

O'Connell told Reuters that the discovery of a phone during the most secret electoral process in the world amounted to something simple: "Reality (was) better than fiction." The line is an obvious nod to the 2024 hit film "Conclave," which dramatized intrigue and betrayal behind the Vatican's closed doors.

The comparison is apt, if uncomfortable for the Church. The entire apparatus of a papal conclave is designed to insulate the process from outside influence. The vows. The surrendered devices. The jamming equipment. The locked doors. Every layer exists to preserve the integrity of one of the oldest institutions in Western civilization. And yet a single cellphone slipped through all of it.

It is strictly forbidden for cardinals to reveal details of the secret balloting at a conclave without permission from the future pope. The book's very existence, packed with vote tallies and behind-the-scenes moments, raises its own questions about how freely those permissions are being granted in the modern era.

What the Vatican Isn't Saying

The Vatican press office did not respond to a request for comment on the book's revelations. That silence is worth noting. A security breach during a papal conclave is not a minor procedural hiccup. It strikes at the foundational promise of the process: that the selection of a pope occurs beyond the reach of worldly pressures.

The book does not name the cardinal. It does not attribute intent. Maybe it was an honest mistake by an elderly cleric who forgot to hand over his device. Maybe it wasn't. The absence of an explanation is precisely the kind of gap that erodes institutional trust, and the Vatican's refusal to address it does nothing to close that gap.

An Institution That Demands Its Own Standards

For conservatives who value tradition and institutional integrity, the conclave phone incident is a small story that gestures at a larger tension. The Catholic Church asks the world to treat the papal election as sacred, set apart, governed by rules that predate the modern nation-state. That request carries weight only if the Church enforces its own standards with the seriousness it expects from everyone else.

One unnamed cardinal with one phone may not constitute a crisis. But an institution that shrugs off the breach, that declines to comment, that lets the story land in a book rather than addressing it head-on, is an institution choosing convenience over credibility.

A cough drop passed between cardinals during the final vote. A cellphone signal picked up where no signal should exist. Both details made it into the same book. Only one of them should have been possible inside the Sistine Chapel.