You are probably correct. While I didn’t necessarily believe her source, I also don’t say could not happen.
Defacto control in secret and contrary to rules does happen on occasion, using things like blackmail.
So funny to watch people who have failed for years, they got NOTHING, telling me how to negotiate with North Korea. But thanks anyway!
The first came about when J-23 was about to issue the call for the Second Vatican Council. A number of traditionalist Curia members believed that this would be a disaster. They convened in the apartment of one of the cardinals to plot the invocation of Article 322. J-23 had his own spies in the Curia, and while the plotters were meeting, he held an impromptu press conference and issued the call for Vatican II. The plotters had the choice of going out into the open and creating a scandal, or just shutting up. They chose the latter course.
When JP-2's health was failing due to advancing Parkinson's Disease in 1999, a number of Curia members asked him to resign, take up life in a monastery in Poland and let the College of Cardinals pick new leadership. There was a plan to invoke Article 322, but JP-2 used every bureaucratic trick in the book to sandbag those who wanted him to step down. He held on until his death in 2005.