(OSV News) – Confidentiality and breach. Debate and politics. Unexpected twists and shocking revelations.
It may be all about the recent US elections – but the plot device of the blockbuster mystery thriller movie “Conclave.”
It’s expected to top $30 million in ticket sales by the time it transitions from theaters to streaming services, garnering international reviews and plenty of Academy Award buzz. .
Why was the movie so popular – even if not with some Catholics?
“I think the appeal comes from the desire to see inside a process that is unknown to many people, especially to international people,” said Michael Coy, director of media and host of the Catholic Film Club podcast at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. “The pope is a secular figure – even if Catholicism is not at the center of people’s lives as it once was.”
Jesuit Father Jake Martin, an assistant professor of film, TV and media studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, believes that the film’s work is improving.
“I think it’s a great movie, and a great story — it tells its story really well, from a technical point of view,” he said. “That’s a hard thing to do.”
“As a filmmaker, I don’t mean the actual church, but as someone who knows how stories are told, and what needs to be done in order to continue eat fast and things like that,” he added.
Released October 25 in the United States by Focus Features, the studio film division of NBCUniversal, the film stars Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini and Stanley Tucci.
Sister Hosea Rupprecht, a daughter of St. Paul and the director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies in Los Angeles, in his other important online review, “from a film-making point of view, (“Conclave”) is better with serious storytelling. disabilities. empty but connected.
OSV News media analyst John Mulderig said that “people will want to approach this work with caution. The ideological smoke it sends out will remain gray.
The film’s promotional blurb promises, “What happens behind these walls will change everything.” Yes, yes – through the creation of time-honored ceremonies, a new pope will be elected in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican by the elected members of the sacred College of Cardinals.
That result, however, is not the only thing that has been revealed; but he – the extortionist – became the new pope as a man with some female genitalia. The idea is that at the end of the film, the Catholic Church – although it is not known, because the secret is revealed by a third of the characters – chooses the pope to describe himself as intersex.
In this way, the game plays with the question of whether a man with feminine qualities can be elected pope.
The answer is “no” in the case of an intersex person who is biologically female with some male characteristics – and those who identify as intersex women face some serious penalties. The Code of Canon Law states, “Both the man who tries to give a sacred order over a woman, and the woman who tries to obtain the sacred order, will receive an excommunication latae sententiae in reserved to the Apostolic See.”
As expected, the film shows that the foundation of the church shown in the film will be shaken if the circle of those who see it is wider than the dead pope; Cardinal Lawrence, dean of the College of Cardinals; and the new pope, Cardinal Benitez.
By the end of the film, whether or not it will happen is not an open question.
Educating the people’s experience and offering a great change, Cardinal Lawrence asked Cardinal Benitez about the purpose of a planned visit to the Geneva office.
“What is it, this medicine?” asked Cardinal Lawrence, when they met in the room known as the Chamber of Tears, the small chapel of the Sistine Chapel where the new popes hung before they first met. on the porch of St. Peter.
“It’s called a laparoscopic hysterectomy,” Cardinal Benitez said.
Long pause, as Cardinal Lawrence digs into this revelation. Cardinal Benitez confirmed that he lived as a man throughout his life, not learning until his appendix was removed in his 30s “It’s a stomach and ovaries.”
He said, “it seems that my whole life as a priest has lived in a sinful state,” Cardinal Benitez – who, according to the teaching of the church, is not sinful for something he didn’t know. The issue with his nature – given his departure from the pope. Surgery was considered, but never done.
It’s a serious thought that can be considered – at least for those who are used to the popular tradition of changing the church’s nose – before the main presentation in less than 10 minutes on before the loans are consumed.
More surprising are a cardinal who gave birth to a child, and another who tried to buy the votes of his colleagues.
However, “Conclave” “is very accurate about the procedures,” confirmed Christopher Bellitto, a papal historian and professor of history at Kean University in Union, New Jersey.
The closure of the cardinals between the Sistine Chapel and the Domus Sanctae Marthae; the number of voting sessions per day; oaths of secrecy and confiscation of electronic devices; the individual journey of each cardinal to cast his vote; counting ballots by hand, done “the good old fashioned way” with a needle and red string; burning ballots; questions asked to the new pope – everything is correct, according to Bellitto.
Incorrect: A cardinal chosen secretly by the pope “in pectore” (“in the heart”) – like Cardinal Benitez – will be admitted to a conclave in the first place. Those appointments were not announced during the lifetime of the pope who made them.
“Some people objected to the presentation of the College of Cardinals as a group of political parties,” Bellitto said of the photo. “These are people. If you don’t think that there are political parties among a group of people, you are an idiot.
Will the “Conclave” shake anyone’s mind?
“If you see the movie ‘Conclave’ to strengthen your faith, there are other ways to do it,” Bellitto said angrily.
Father Martin said that “Conclave” “does not harm the church,” and “it is true that sometimes it is painted in a very good light.”
“It shows the multivalent parts of the people in the church, and the complexity of it,” he said. “So it’s not going to do that kind of normal reporting. Images are rich and multidimensional. It represents a human church in many ways. “
Coy said the film tries to grapple with “a hot-button issue, and it asks a hot-button question, which is: Can an intersex man be pope?”
And that, Coy said, leads to another problem – that of Cardinal Lawrence, who is described as a “liberal” by others in the film.
“If a pope or a member of the clergy is intersex, then open up the possibility that they could be the first lady,” Coy said. “Since women cannot be ordained as priests, you run the risk of every sacrament not properly served by this priest, or cardinal – or pope.”
“So, the gravity of the pope could not see the dawn in a cardinal,” said Coy. “The cardinal will see that problem; and to me, every cardinal – of political opinion – has more confidence to allow this to happen without further investigation.
However, given the human and public continuity of the question woven into the “Conclave,” with statements like “One sin I fear more than any other: the truth” and “Our faith is alive because it goes hand-in-hand. -hand-in-hand with uncertainty” and “Give us a pope doubt” – the development may not be surprising.
“It will serve to fulfill the theme of the film about this between faith and doubt, and certainty and uncertainty,” said Father Martin. “It’s like a symbolic representation of that.”
Indeed, Cardinal Benitez agreed with Cardinal Lawrence, “I know what it is to be between the two.”
However, for all the opinions – anger, sometimes praise – of critics, publishers, and listeners, one thing to remember.
“At the end of the day,” said Father Martin, “it’s a work of fiction.”
Kimberley Heatherington writes for OSV News from Virginia.
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