The indelible politics of Conclave
Film Review: ‘Conclave’
Review: Conclave preaches the power of potential papal populism.
WARNING: Spoilers ahead.
In 2025, everything is political. There isn’t a news outlet that people won’t categorize within one political lean or another. The Super Bowl halftime show earlier this month, performed by Kendrick Lamar, an artist known for his multi-layered lyrics, was as much a comment on America as it was a diss on Drake. Not to mention, snarky internet users comment “vaxxed?” whenever something bad happens to right-of-center public figures.
Even the century-old institutions and bodies of power that were specifically designed to avoid being bogged down by political influences are now just as much victims to them. The Supreme Court would be a prime example of this. So, too would the Catholic Church; at least, Conclave seems to think so.
The titular conclave refers to the collection of cardinals who are summoned to Rome to elect one of their own as the new pope following the death of the old one. Across the film’s two hours, viewers are taken inside this election process, along with all of the politics and murmuring that follow. Who knew the clergy could be so dramatic?
Ralph Fiennes plays Cardinal Lawrence, the dean of the College of Cardinals. He is tasked with overseeing the papal conclave across what ends up being seven different ballots and managing the scandal and intrigue between each one. Among the most prominent candidates are Cardinals Bellini (Stanley Tucci), Tremblay (John Lithgow), Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati) and Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto). These candidates, with their views ranging from progressivism to hardline traditionalism, represent the broad political spectrum of the church.
However, a dark horse candidate emerges in Cardinal Benitez. Serving the church across various global war zones, most recently as the Archbishop of Kabul, Afghanistan. Benitez was elevated to a cardinal in secret for his protection, making him an unknown to the rest of the conclave before his arrival to the Holy See. His soft spoken humanity quickly comes across, and he becomes a frontrunner by the seventh ballot.
When rewatching Conclave today, I tried my best to avoid putting any ideological spins on its plot. But, at least to me, it can’t help but scream its politics from the rooftop of the Sistine Chapel itself. It’s almost divinely ironic that this movie is in the trenches of the awards season while America is being flipped on its head post-inauguration. Not to mention, a real life conclave is on the verge of forming.
The first papal candidate to fall, Cardinal Adeyemi is a solid and likeable choice. Sure, he has pretty severe social views, but wouldn’t it be great if he were the first Black pope? His candidacy crumbles, however, when it’s revealed that he has had a secret relationship with none other than a nun, resulting in a child. He preaches family values and is bound to clerical celibacy, but he commits one of the gravest sins in modern politics: hypocrisy.
Cardinal Bellini is a leading choice for many liberal-leaning cardinals, including Lawrence. He is adamant that he does not want the papacy and tries to wield his unforgivingly progressive views as weaknesses to draw votes away from himself. Even after this, he still holds a few supporters in his corner, who he points towards Cardinal Tremblay.
Bellini’s progressive ideals include looser views on gay marriage and divorces, respecting other faiths, tolerating differing views in the church and never returning to the obsolete Latin liturgical rites. Are these things really so outlandishly progressive? In a place like the Catholic Church, with some of its rather archaic social values, the answer would be yes. But surely not in the real world, right? Look around, though. We as a country are still not over bigotry, intolerance and the allure of traditionalism, so maybe the labelling of Bellini as unsustainably forward thinking should still be eye-opening.
Following this, Cardinal Tremblay then appears to be poised for the papacy. A moderate, his politics are rather unexplored, but he is respected enough among his fellow cardinals. He too falls, though, when Lawrence discovers he paid off some of the cardinals in exchange for votes. Wow! In a political world swirling with cases of hush money and fraudsters, corruption has arguably become akin to everyday campaign donations. But for it to extend to a prominent cardinal is still a shocking development in a movie already full of benedictory bombshells.
The last real candidate seems to be Tedesco, a usually subtle bigot who wants to return to the unmatched divinity he finds in the Latin liturgy. After a suicide bombing interrupts what might’ve been the round of voting giving him the papacy, though, he is not so subtle when openly attacking Islam, blaming the liberal wings of the church for their dangerous level of tolerance. Sound like the news for the last decade? Tedesco’s hawkish fearmongering makes a lot of sense if one subscribes to his description of the dire state of the church and the world itself. But to me, this perspective is extreme and close-minded.
In response to Tedesco’s dogmatic rant, Benitez speaks up for the first time. Previously, he had blessed one of the conclave’s dinners, turning heads when he went beyond the expected quick blessing to give special consideration to the poor, hungry and thirsty, and the nuns who prepared the dinner. Benitez now emphasizes the sanctity of nonviolence, drawing upon his services in the clergies of war-torn hotspots and what the church’s role should be in this polarized modern world. As he puts it, the church is not the past, its traditions, Rome or any of the individual cardinals present – “The church is what we do next.”
Benitez’s inherently populist outlook on the church is the clear middle line between his peers’ political infighting. How can something as monolithic as the Catholic Church carry itself in an increasingly contentious and divided world when it narrows its policies to the personal doctrines of its leader? Benitez’s much-needed reminder that the church is bigger than just one cardinal’s attitude seals his papacy and points to a path of clearheadedness and grounded objectivity for all walks of life.
Cardinal Lawrence is an interesting character in all of this. Perhaps an easy choice for the papacy because of his deanship, he wants it even less than Bellini, citing recent difficulties with prayer and faith. However, he shows great leadership in his direction of the conclave, garnering a handful of votes in certain ballots, including his own in the sixth when Tedesco seems to be the frontrunner. But he is eager to let Benitez, now Pope Innocent XIV, take the throne, if not for one nagging tidbit.
Throughout Conclave, as Lawrence investigates the skeletons in his fellow cardinals’ closets, he also strives to uncover the facts of Benitez’s mysterious past and some sort of medical episode that the previous pope was directly involved with. After being elected pope, Benitez reveals to Lawrence that he was born intersex and almost underwent surgery to remove his uterus before deciding to live “as God made [him].”
A truly singular revelation in a movie full of them, Lawrence ultimately does nothing with the information. This powerful discretion is at the heart of Lawrence’s character.
A bombshell like this could implode an organization as storied and traditional as the Catholic Church – I don’t need to tell you what the global reaction would be to the news that “the pope has ovaries.” But Lawrence, ever the kind and careful steward of his faith, casts this secret into the metaphorical fire, as real smoke emerges from the Sistine Chapel to signify the election of a new pope.
The memeability of its venerated vape hits aside, Conclave advocates for a level headed approach to the traps of modern politics. Past division and ideological pigeonholing, what’s best for you and me ought to be what’s best for everyone else, too.