I watched the recent Oscar-bait film Conclave somewhat reluctantly, mostly because Pope Francis‘s death on April 21 prompted renewed interest in the film after it was made available on Amazon Prime.
As the entire world eagerly anticipates the conclave that will elect Francis’s successor, Hollywood has done its part to color the public’s view of the traditional but secretive process that the College of Cardinals embarks on to elect a new pope following the death or resignation of the sitting pontiff.
The film gets a lot right. There are numerous meetings known as “congregations” before the conclave begins, as well as informal discussions throughout the process in which the cardinals consider the various problems facing the Catholic Church and what is needed in a new pope. The specific formulas for how the conclave is conducted are also depicted fairly accurately. It even tries to portray the various ideological factions within the College of Cardinals.
But for what the film gets right in procedure, it gets wrong in substance. As a filmmaking project, Conclave is decidedly mediocre. A decent performance by Ralph Fiennes as the dean of the College of Cardinals does little to uplift a film bogged down by its own parody.
In its bid for drama, the film caricatures the Catholic Church and the men who lead it as political animals akin to the most ruthless politicians in Washington, D.C., London, or Brussels. Dialogue between the various factions in the film is laughably reductionist and devoid of the nuance that animates many theological debates within the church.
That said, there is little question that ideology plays a role in selecting a pope. But the film’s dramatic escalation of the conclave process completely ignores its fundamentally religious elements. It is a microcosm of how legacy media institutions, Hollywood, and news outlets view the Catholic Church and the papal office. Rather than seeing it as an institution revered and respected as the largest Christian denomination, they see it as a mysterious and curious institution that captures the attention of the world but is ultimately a vestige of a bygone era in which kings ruled and religion occupied a prominent place in the cultural conscience.
As Conclave and prior films such as the Da Vinci Code and its sequels exemplify, this view of the Catholic Church reduces the institution to a sort of toy for which the news and entertainment media can project storylines of intrigue, mystery, and conspiracy. In the meantime, Catholic leaders who declare moral truths that run contrary to the prevailing enlightened secular orthodoxy are ignored and dismissed out of hand, while those who attempt to align the church with those same secular mores are exalted and become media darlings.
This dichotomy was on full display during the Francis pontificate, as any remark that the late pontiff made about climate change was discussed by the secular media with breathless abandon, but his comments that likened abortion to “hiring a hitman” were largely or totally ignored. Other senior churchmen, such as Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C., have had their comments critical of the Trump administration’s immigration policies elevated by the legacy media, while Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s criticism of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for her support of abortion was completely ignored.
Media bias in favor of the latest leftist political fad is, of course, nothing new. But in this context, it highlights just how much the legacy media view the Catholic Church as little more than a political tool to be used when convenient and ignored otherwise.
In the wake of Francis’s death and the popularity of Conclave, the upcoming conclave, set to begin on May 7, has become a source of intrigue and speculation that is fascinating the world over. And to be sure, the election of a pope is a fascinating and intriguing event. It happens quite rarely. Next week’s conclave is only the third one this century, and the anticipation of the white smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney signaling a successful election is a dramatic and exhilarating occurrence, as is the announcement of “Habemus papam” from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, where the new pontiff’s name is announced to the world, and finally, the new pope’s first appearance on the balcony.
The drama and intrigue surrounding the selection of a new pope, however, have allowed the legacy media’s fascination with the Catholic Church’s mysteriousness to bubble over, as well as the prospect of a new pope who could accelerate the institution’s adoption of modern liberal sensibilities.
Numerous outlets have offered explainers about the papal election process, often contrasting the real conclave with the recent movie version. However, a new favorite pastime is fixating on various cardinals who are considered “papabile,” or possible candidates to be the next pope. Vox, for instance, on the day Francis died, declared that “a betting progressive Catholic would likely prefer a European pope over an African one,” because the African cardinals are too conservative on social issues such as homosexuality. The author then settled on Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines as the ideal candidate to succeed Francis because he would “pacify Western progressives … while offering the Global South — and the new Christian majority — a leader who looks and has lived more like his flock.”
Not to be outdone, the New York Times said those leading efforts to elect a more conservative or traditional pope were using a “seductively simple slogan: unity,” claiming that, for supporters of Francis, “it rings as a code word for rolling back Francis’ more inclusive vision of the Roman Catholic Church.” In another report, the New York Times declared Tagle to be the “Asian Francis,” citing a commentary article from a decade ago. He was the first cardinal the outlet profiled as a possible new pope.
Other examples of fawning coverage of progressive cardinals abound, as does the critical coverage of any faction within the Catholic Church that would seek a more traditional or conservative direction, including the African cardinals, who are favorites of conservatives. But that is the Western media’s relationship with the Catholic Church. It is an institution of fascination and intrigue, but one that is only interesting during times of transition and change. It is in those times of transition and change that the Left can project the ideological changes that have been adopted by practically every other Christian denomination in the West. To the media, each conclave and new papacy is seen as an opportunity for the church, mystical customs and all, to relax its prohibitions on contraception and abortion, allow women to be ordained priests, and use its massive global platform to embrace the political agenda of the Left.
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In other words, it’s an opportunity to project a liberal wish list onto one of the few centralized institutions in the West that has resisted adopting the social and political agenda of the Left. Add that and an aura of mystery and tradition that dates back two millennia, and there is a recipe for a compelling cultural thriller. Perhaps even one that garners acclaim at the Academy Awards.
But once a new pope makes clear that the unchangeable will remain unchanged, that obsession with this institution will fade and lie dormant until such a day when the papal seat is vacant and the cycle can be repeated once again.