If you haven’t read Conclave by Robert Harris or seen the movie, now is the time to do so. I saw the movie advertised on television, read the book, listened to the book with June, and then we watched the movie. All good experiences which helped prepare us for the real Conclave, which begins today, May 7.
All the intrigue of the novel and the movie are there, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal: Real-Life Conclave Rivals Drama of Movie Version, May 4, 2025. It opens:
The scene opens with a cleric turning up uninvited to a secret meeting of cardinals, declaring his right to join the conclave to elect the next pope. Infighting among cardinals ensues, and dormant scandals are dredged up for political aims.
Wait, you might say, haven’t I seen this movie? It sounds like the intrigue-laden, Oscar-winning film “Conclave,” starring Ralph Fiennes as a cardinal who oversees a papal election beset by rivalries.
Except this is the real-life version. It, too, has an Anglophone prelate, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, an American steering the factious assembly.
There have been whispering campaigns against the front-runners—Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a 70-year-old Italian and career diplomat, and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, 67, of the Philippines. The aim is to make them living proof of a conclave adage: He who enters a pope, leaves a cardinal.
The article, worth the read in its entirety, goes on:
“Each scene is worth a thousand words,” said Cardinal Michael Czerny, a senior Vatican official…“It supplies everyone else with a whole lot of images, feelings and expressions to appreciate the conclave, which no amount of talking, reading can supply.”…The film’s portrayal of how cardinals go about the business of electing a pope—from the mundane details of cardinals’ dorm life to the Machiavellian maneuverings of conclave factions—isn’t entirely off base.
Aside from the intrigue and drama inherent in a secret, elaborately choreographed process, why should we care? Carl Trueman, writing for World, the Christian, conservative, news magazine, explains:
The death of Pope Francis has captured the imagination of the wider world and perhaps inevitably raised the question of how Protestants should think about the papacy and the pending election of his successor. In a sense, the pope has no direct significance for Protestant churches. Our churches have no analogous leadership position...
But the papacy should still be of interest to Protestants and the outcome of this election will have repercussions even for non-Catholics…
Protestantism benefits in several ways from strong and clear papal leadership. First, a vigorously Catholic pope, such as John Paul II or Benedict XVI, makes it easier to see where the points of alignment and the points of disagreement between Catholics and Protestants lie. On things such as the doctrine of God and, given our current sexual and gender chaos, the moral significance of the human body, Protestants have much to learn from Rome. And yet we must not lose sight of the serious differences on things such as the sacraments and the nature of justification that cannot be swept aside as trivia. A pope with a knowledge of, and commitment to, his own church’s theology, will make Protestants think more clearly about the importance of these similarities and differences.
Second, we must remember that the non-Christian world, whether that of the international stage or of our non-Christian neighbor, does not see the importance of doctrinal and ecclesiastical differences as we do. And that means that when they see the head of the largest church body in the world, they see a microcosm of what they consider Christians to be. A pope who is at least clear on basic issues such as gender and human sexuality—indeed, on what it means to be a creature made in God’s image—will benefit us all. Francis spoke with clarity on gender, but his mixed signals on sexuality and equivocal actions on child abuse served to weaken Christian witness across the spectrum.
That leads to a third reason for hoping that the next pope is a man of clear convictions. If the Roman Catholic Church squanders its legacy on questions of ethics, of what it means to be human, and of religious freedom, all churches, including Protestant ones, will suffer. Rome with its public profile and its power, intellectual and financial, provides cover for us all in wider society.
“Rome with its public profile and its power…provides cover for us all in wider society.” That’s why we should care, and therefore pray for the papal selection process.
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. (1 Timothy 2.1, 2, ESV)
ALL in high positions, as I wrote on March 21, 2021.
PS Another World Magazine editorial, this one by Andrew T. Walker, makes the same point, closing with:
So yes, Protestants care who the next pope is. Not because we’re returning to Rome but because the West—our shared civilization—desperately needs a moral compass with courage and clarity. We pray, then, not for a pope who flatters the world, but for one who will stand against it in the name of truth. For the good of the shared moral witness. And for the good of the world.
