Conclave brought me back to the day I visited a 7th grade classroom at St. Mary’s School. I had just returned from Rome and was eager to share some of my Vatican experiences. As I talked about the election of the Pope with black smoke and white smoke announcing the new Vicar of Christ, a young man raised his hand and asked me if I was a priest or something. As the air went out of my balloon, I quickly remembered that several non-Catholics kids had just arrived in the 7th grade, one month before my visit. Though I am not sure if all the Catholic kids knew who I was either!
Conclave is the meeting of Cardinals that elects a new Pope when the See of Peter becomes vacant. It is also the name of a new movie that proves that the Catholic Church can still be a silver screen sensation for everyone who has ever been intrigued by Catholic ritual and ecclesiastical politics. It begins with the death of the incumbent Pope. The ritual of destroying his ring and sealing his apartment gets the movie off to a slow start. The drama picks up quickly, however, when Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, played masterfully by Ralph Fiennes, finds himself in the maestro’s seat for orchestrating the cacophony of his fellow Cardinals into a harmony that will elect a new Bishop of Rome. He is the Dean of the College of Cardinals but also has the Sherlock Holmes job of untangling the intrigue floating all around him. Conclave is a first-class mystery with an ending that would please O.Henry.
Based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris, Conclave brings us inside the most secretive of meetings imaginable. Cardinals from all over the world descend upon Vatican City to elect one of their own to the See of St. Peter. While the basic structure of a conclave is not a secret, the actual goings on within a conclave really are. Conclave, therefore, is a true work of fiction. Nonetheless, it succeeds in casting into bold relief some of the real issues that are roiling the Catholic Church today. Liberals, Conservatives, Progressives and Reactionaries are all present within this fictional conclave. Faith and doubt are woven into the fabric of the story. Ambition, arrogance and manipulation are also on clear display, dispelling the myth that high church officials are devoid of human failings. Most intriguing of all is the surprise ending of a movie that could not be more perfectly timed in making its appearance at the end of the Synod on Synodaity.
It has been said that the Church is in the world and the world is in the Church. Conclave attests to the truthfulness of this observation despite its fictional nature. Its believable characters are believable precisely because we know real people who are like them. From the time when St. Paul confronted St Peter with his hypocrisy about the Gentiles down to the Pontificate of Pope Francis with his vocal critics, the Church has always been a work in progress. Listening to and for the Holy Spirit has always been and continues to be more of an art than a science. It is called discernment. When the Cardinals in Conclave finally come together on a candidate, a slight breeze passes through the Sistine Chapel. This may be director Edward Berger’s hat tip to the Holy Spirit or just the product of a shattered window, or both. The one thing it is not, is inconsequential. For Elisha the prophet God was not to be found in the earthquake or the driving wind but in the gentle breeze.
Conclave is a must-see movie for anyone who enjoys a good mystery. It is a must-see movie for anyone who has ever wondered about how the pope gets to be pope. And it is a must-see movie for anyone who wants to be distracted from the angst that our politics are producing today.
Msgr. Paul V. Garrity is a senior priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and former pastor at St. Mary’s Church in Lynn.
