You want to talk endorsements for the big election? Here’s one.
Fabian was really nobody in particular when, in the year 236, he decided to travel to Rome and watch the clergy vote on the new pope. As Eusebius of Caesarea later recounted, “several renowned and honorable men were in the minds of many, but Fabian…was in the mind of none.”
Suddenly, in the church, there came descending right on top of random, pious Fabian’s head a dove — just like had happened at Christ’s baptism. With “joyous unanimity,” it’s said, the congregation felt they had no choice but to proclaim Fabian as the next pope, and so they did.