VATICAN CITY — Faced with the highly secretive and complex ritual of choosing a new pope, Catholic cardinals have turned to Hollywood to learn how it could all play out.
As crazy as it might sound, some of the 133 high-ranking clerics set to enter the Sistine Chapel when the conclave starts on Wednesday have looked to the Ralph Fiennes movie ― handily titled just “Conclave” ― for pointers.
“Some have watched it in the cinema,” a cleric involved in the real thing admitted to POLITICO.
The movie, directed by Edward Berger, features English actor Fiennes as Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, a pope-appointed “camerlengo,” or chamberlain, who is tasked with overseeing 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.
Hotbed of scandal
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.
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