The bells of St. Peter’s Basilica did not toll at midnight, but the silence that gripped Vatican City was far more deafening than any bronze chime could ever be. Inside the Sala Regia, a room usually reserved for the most solemn of diplomatic receptions, the air was thick with a tension that felt almost combustible. Fifty of the most influential Cardinals, the “Princes of the Church,” had been summoned with a cold urgency that bypassed all traditional protocol. There were no hymns, no incense, and no prayers to soften the blow of what was about to transpire. Instead, the Cardinals were met by the sight of the Swiss Guard, stripped of their colorful Renaissance uniforms and clad in dark, tactical gear, standing like silent sentinels of a new, militaristic order. When Pope Leo XIV entered the room, he did not carry the ornate pastoral staff, nor did he wear the heavy gold Ring of the Fisherman. He was dressed in a simple, stark white cassock, his face a mask of cold, calculated determination that resembled a general more than a shepherd. On the long oak table that dominated the center of the hall sat fifty black dossiers, each one a silent harbinger of the end of a career, or perhaps something much worse.

Leo XIV began the session not with a blessing, but with a condemnation that shattered the remaining composure of the gathered prelates, telling them directly that they no longer represented the divine, but rather a decayed museum that had outlived its usefulness. The atmosphere turned from shock to open hostility as Cardinal Valeriani, the staunch leader of the conservative faction, stood to challenge the Pontiff, accusing him of committing a historical error and acting like a dictator rather than the successor of St. Peter. The Pope’s response was a thunderous dismissal of the past, as he threw a document onto the table with the force of a gunshot, officially enacting the “Lumen Novum” decree. This mandate did not just tweak the liturgy; it effectively suspended traditional Catholicism as the world knew it, banning the Latin Mass and the intricate rituals that had defined the faith for centuries. When an elderly Cardinal, his voice trembling with fear, asked where the billions of faithful would be led if their traditions were stripped away, Leo XIV offered a smile that was both enigmatic and chilling, stating that they were being led toward a truth that had been buried under layers of expensive robes and hypocrisy for too long.

The drama intensified when the conversation turned to the recent scandals in South America, where the Pope had controversially defended the historical subjugation of indigenous peoples as a “mission of enlightenment.” Cardinal Rodriguez, visibly shaking with rage, accused the Pope of turning the Vatican into an enemy of social justice and insulting millions of people. Leo XIV did not retreat; instead, he leaned in, his eyes locking onto Rodriguez’s with a predatory intensity. He dismissed the concept of social justice as a form of weakness, declaring that he had not come to apologize for history but to assert that history belongs to the strong and the iron-willed. He made it clear that the Church did not need numbers, but rather a purification, and if the world was offended by his stance on the indigenous tribes, they were free to leave. This was a declaration of a new, exclusionary faith—one built on absolute submission to a singular, centralized power.

As the hours ticked toward dawn, the Sala Regia became a theater of chaos. Reports leaking from the inner sanctum suggested that Valeriani and his allies attempted to stage a walkout in protest, only to find that every exit had been electronically locked and guarded. The sounds of shouting echoed through the Apostolic Palace, with voices accusing the Pope of banning the very religion he was sworn to protect. Leo XIV’s voice remained the dominant force, cutting through the noise to clarify that he was not banning religion, but rather the “organized hypocrisy” of the old guard. He announced that the assets of every dismissed diocese would be seized immediately to fund his “City of Light” project—a vision where religious devotion and personal power would merge into an unbreakable monolith. The transition was not to be a gradual reform, but a violent severance from the past.

By three in the morning, the once-mighty Cardinals were escorted out of the Vatican under heavy guard, many of them weeping or staring blankly into the cameras of the few journalists who had managed to gather at the perimeter. The marble floors of the Sala Regia were littered with discarded red hats, symbolic ruins of an era that had been ended in a single night of calculated ruthlessness. St. Peter’s Square was quickly cordoned off by security forces as groups of the faithful began to gather in the darkness, some kneeling in desperate prayer while others burned effigies in a fit of righteous anger. The global political community was thrown into a frenzy, with emergency meetings being called in capitals from Washington to London to discuss how to handle an American-born Pope who had essentially declared himself a spiritual autocrat.

The implications of this “Night of the Purge” are still being processed by a stunned world. Leo XIV has done what was previously thought impossible: he has dismantled the internal structure of the Catholic Church to build an empire of his own design. This was not a theological debate; it was a hostile takeover of the world’s oldest institution. The “Lumen Novum” is not a light of hope for many, but a scorching fire intended to burn away any vestige of dissent. As the sun rose over Rome, the Vatican stood not as a beacon of ancient tradition, but as a fortress of a new, unpredictable power. The “Game of Thrones” within the Holy See has moved from the shadows into the blinding light of a new day, and the world can only watch in horror or fascination as the first chapters of this new era are written in the ink of absolute authority. The old order is dead, and in its place stands a man who believes that mercy is a relic and power is the only true sacrament.