Conclave Imitates Conclave

After weeks of jokes from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, the papal conclave is actually learning from the Oscar-winning Conclave. The Catholic cardinals’ voting process to decide a new pope begins May 7, and the Ralph Fiennes–starring film is serving as an employee training video. “Some have watched it in the cinema,” a cleric told Politico. The majority of cardinals coming to the Vatican for the voting ceremony were appointed by the recently deceased Pope Francis, which means they would not have participated in the previous conclave. According to Politico, the cardinals see the Edward Berger movie as “remarkably” accurate, and it’s a particularly helpful tool for the newer cardinals that Francis appointed from small, less known dioceses to learn about how proceedings go in the Vatican.

The first conclave since 2013 has enough scandal to power a film on its own. Italian cardinal Angelo Becciu withdrew from the conclave, per an April 30 Euronews report, because of a letter Pope Francis wrote requesting he not participate after being convicted of embezzlement and other financial crimes by Vatican courts in 2023. That’s just like the letter in Conclave where the previous pope requests that John Lithgow’s character remove himself from the proceedings. If life continues to imitate art, we might be seeing our first Asian pope soon, since Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, a liberal candidate from the global South, is the most similar to eventual Conclave winner Cardinal Benitez. A karaoke-loving pope does sound like a good time.

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