While the movie 'Conclave' is anything but Catholic, its understanding of the inner workings of the process is not as far off from the truth as one might think.
(LifeSiteNews) — As the start of the next conclave draws near, it is worth reflecting on how the cardinals will go about electing the next man to don the papal vestments.
Conclaves in the past have rarely been anything but messy. This is due to the fallen nature of man, who is at once drawn upward to heaven and the things of God but is forced to grapple with the the realities of power, war, and politics.
At the moment, it looks as if there are two “liberal” candidates emerging — Cardinal Matteo Zuppi and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the current Vatican Secretary of State.
Zuppi is the Vatican’s lesser known envoy to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In 2022, Francis named him president of the prestigious Italian bishops conference, two years after he was praised as a possible “very good pope” by Gioele Magaldi, a former Masonic Grand Master.
Zuppi previously presided over Magaldi’s marriage.
The “conservative” candidates — at least those who are being promoted by Catholic media outlets and influencers — are Cardinal Sarah of Africa, Cardinal Péter Erdő of Hungary, and Cardinal Pizzaballa of Jerusalem.
Officially, the conclave will open on May 7. But the cardinals have already had more than five meetings in the Vatican. Several cardinals who are over 80 — such as Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong — are not allowed to vote in the conclave but are attending the meetings to ensure their concerns are heard.
Conclave film was pretty close to realityThe entire situation is not dissimilar from what is depicted in the movie Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and others.
Conclave has been criticized by many for its shock ending where the cardinals coalesce around a “intersex” person who has both male and female reproductive organs and elect him pope. While such a situation is obviously blasphemous, the film’s overall plot is rather good and probably not that far from reality.
At various times over the course of Conclave different front-runners emerge, but each of the are undermined in various ways.
One is hard-line Traditionalist Cardinal Tedesco from Spain. Tedesco expresses support for the Latin Mass and a desire to return to other practices but he loses support after delivering an impassioned speech against Islam after a terror attack blows a hole through the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. Apparently the cardinals wanted a more diplomatic approach to the situation.
Another candidate who starts to earn votes is the socially conservative Cardinal Adeyemi of Africa. But his candidacy is torpedoed when another cardinal who opposes his election secretly flies a woman he had sexual relations with decades ago to the Vatican. Fiennes’ character, Cardinal Lawrence, finds out about this and is aghast at the tactic, though he does tell Adeyemi he cannot be the pope.
Stanley Tucci’s character, American Cardinal Aldo Bellini, symbolizes the liberal wing of the cardinals. Some of his lines could have lifted from a Cardinal Cupich or Francis speech.
“If we liberals are not united, Tedesco will become Pope … If Tedesco becomes pope, he will undo 60 years of progress,” Bellini complains at one point.
While speaking with Cardinal Lawrence, Bellini also attacks Adeyemi as being a man who “believes that homosexuals should be sent to prison in this world and hell in the next. [He] is not the answer to anything.”
Bellini then says, “if you want to defeat Tedesco,” only to be interrupted by Lawrence, who interjects, “defeat who? This is a conclave, Aldo. It's not a war.”
To which Bellini replies: “it is a war, and you have to commit to a side.”
This is perhaps the most pivotal line in the whole movie as it serves as a stark reminder for Lawrence — who up until then in his role as the Dean of the College of Cardinals had been rather impartial — that there are real, inescapable differences among the cardinals and that neutrality is not an option.
Are there similarities with the upcoming conclave?This week in St. Peter's, just one day after Francis’ funeral, Cardinal Parolin said Mass with over 200,000 young people in attendance. Vatican reporter Christopher White has said that it was an abysmal performance that may have cost him the papacy.
“While [Parolin’s] words may have offered a ringing endorsement of the late pope, his stilted style left him unable to connect with a crowd. As one cardinal-elector told the National Catholic Reporter, the Mass was a reminder of Francis' charisma and communication gifts and that Parolin lacks both.”
White added that, “while early reports indicate that opposition is rising to a Parolin papacy, no clear rival candidate has yet to emerge as a favorite among the cardinals.”
Parolin also reportedly fainted after a General Congregation at the Vatican on April 30. The health scare has been attributed to a high blood pressure episode. Will it give cardinals who were otherwise on the fence about him reason to not cast their vote for him? Surely it will.
Another example of a candidate who has seen his candidacy diminished in recent days is Philippine Cardinal Luis Tagle.
Tagle has long-been described as a contender to replace Francis. In 2019, he was named Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. But he has fizzled out in recent years to due to his mishandling of Caritas International, which he was ultimately removed from by Francis in 2022 after having been at the helm for seven years.
Despite all this, Tagle has remained one of the likeliest candidates to emerge from the meeting, according to betting markets, at least.
Those odds should crater in the coming days as a cringy video of him singing John Lennon’s utopian “Imagine” went viral on social media this week. This should be the final nail in the coffin for his candidacy this time around and at all future conclaves he participates in.
In the coming days there will surely be other names who see their star rise and fall, just as in Conclave. But, at least in our case we can be sure (at least I think) that whoever emerges in the white vestments will not be someone who has both male and female reproductive organs. And for that we should be thankful.
