A Post-Conclave Conclave
Conclave is a great film. Conclave the conclave will be drama even Hollywood couldn't script. Shame we will (probably) never know about it
Someone was going to claim it, and here it be: The real cardinals of the actual conclave to pick the next Pope are watching Conclave the film to get the particulars down. At least, that’s what Politico is attracting clicks with:
The movie, directed by Edward Berger, features English actor Fiennes as Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, the dean of the College of Cardinals. As the pope-appointed steward of the conclave, he has to deal with fractious clerics, the emergence of scandalous dossiers targeting papal favorites and the appearance of an unknown candidate from an obscure diocese.
It all might sound painfully relevant. The film is seen as remarkably accurate even by cardinals, said the cleric, making it a helpful research tool, especially at a time when so many of the conclave participants have little experience of Vatican politics and protocol.
A majority of the cardinals who flocked to Rome in the weeks since the death of Pope Francis were appointed by the late pontiff, and have never experienced a conclave. Mirroring the Fiennes film, many also come from small, previously overlooked dioceses across the globe.
The film was released four months before Pope Francis’ death on April 21 and provided an extraordinarily well-timed primer for millions of people who developed a sudden thirst for to-the-minute updates on papal front-runners and ecclesiastical intrigue after the real-world version was set in motion.
Pre-conclave lobbying has already proved a hotbed of scandal no less sensational than the Hollywood imitation.
Hardened Vatican insiders have leaked anonymous barbs against rivals to the Italian press, abuse allegations have surfaced against several top contenders, and one disgraced cardinal connected to a major financial fraud was controversially banned from the proceedings after the disclosure of a dramatic posthumous letter by the late pope
There’s a scene in Conclave where Stanley Tucci’s Aldo goes off on Ralph Fiennes’s Lawrence when the latter denies ever thinking about becoming Pope himself. “Oh, every cardinal has that desire! Every cardinal, deep down inside, has already chosen the name by which he would like his papacy to be known!” Which rings not only true but also tempers the notion that the cardinals don’t know the particulars of how they themselves would rise to the post they are eligible for. So, sure, the real-life cardinals have probably seen the movie but, no, the idea that men who have spent their entire lives climbing the rungs of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic ladder don’t know the process is a Pope hat too far to believe.
Still, with Conclave the film coming out only months before conclave the real-life event, the film being the filter for the faithful and unfaithful alike to view the proceedings is inevitable. Accuracy always gives way to convenience, after all, especially for dramatic purposes. The mysteries of the Church of Rome combined with the internal machinations of very human men aspiring to the most elevated of spiritual offices that also wields immense tangible power is irresistible drama.
Democratically elected infallibility makes for a heck of metaphor for our present dispensation of time, whether you are Catholic or not. The Roman Catholic Church being the largest of the Christian churches at 1.2 billion adherents strong, and being interwoven with the vast majority of Western history and development since…well, you know who…the periodic search for the Next Pontificate Star is always fascinating. In the social media era of an interconnected world, it will be one of the most streamed, shared, and carefully watched events in history.
With that attention will come a whole bunch of nonsense. Major media outlets have spent the time since the death of Pope Francis with the expected lists of “favorites” to be the next Bishop of Rome. American social media has been having fun comparing the conclave to the recently held NFL Draft. And, of course, Conclave the movie is benefiting from some of the best timing ever by a feature film and shot to the top of the streaming lists.
But no one knows what is really going to happen, and when the conclave is over we will know who the new Supreme Pontiff is, but still won’t know how it happened, or why. In a world where access is everywhere for everything all at once via technology, the papal conclave is one of the few worldwide events that still has real mystery to it. Perhaps those days are numbered, and some cardinal goes rogue on TikTok or Facebook spilling the tea on the Holy See, as the kids say. Sequestered or not, the cardinals are powerful men who know how to get information out for various purposes to the press, and at some point video and audio might find their way into that mix, confiscated cell phones or not. But for now, all eyes will be on the purpose rigged chimney several times a day for however long it takes to get some white smoke.
When Conclave the film came out attention was given to the plot twist ending as it fit into the political/social discourse as content. But the film really struck a chord of how these elevated men in grand vestments surrounded by rituals, opulence, and centuries of history deciding on what Fiennes Lawrence described as “the most famous man in the world” are still just men when the doors shut. The recited words fade, the stunning Sistine Chapel art gives way to plain living quarters, and silence recalibrates the grandest into their true place of smallness. The film is masterful in making sound its own character: the shutting of doors, the breaking of seals, the scrapping of pens across paper, the heavy footsteps on marble floors that have seen thousands of holy men and centuries of history stomp to and fro hurrying to do important things in moments now mostly lost to history. Sound and silence carry the film as much as the all-star cast at the top of their game.
If we must use a film to filter this exercise in faith, maybe that is the better marker of where we are as a world and people. For all the many, many faults and failures of the self-professed one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Rome choosing the next pope is a moment — an increasingly rare moment — that redirects the noise of the media world into a singular event. For our Catholic friends, the direction of their church for the foreseeable future will be at stake, along with the usual questions of reforms, revelations, and reaching an unbelieving word that has plenty of valid reasons to not believe. For the rest of the world, it is as good a time as any to contemplate the intersection of the spiritual and the temporal, and how humans not only seek the divine, but figure out a way to build a truly impressive power structure around trying to get to heaven.
Conclave the film is a great movie. Conclave the conclave will be a drama even Hollywood couldn’t script. Shame we will (probably) never know about it.
I think the legacy of Pope Francis will have a great effect when choosing the next pope. He may even take the name Francis as well. Though the need to respond to the abuse crisis will also be considered.