Why Conclave Surprised Me - and as a Catholic, I loved it
Conclave dives into the real question: how do you stay true to your faith when everything’s stacked against you?
A conclave turns into a battleground of scandals, politics, and clashing agendas. Lawrence, stuck in the middle, stands out as the only one trying to live like Christ—doubting, grieving, but refusing to cave. The factions are predictable: Tedesco pushes rigid tradition, Bellini preaches progress, and the ghost of Pope Francis lingers, fighting the same battles he’s been dealing with since day one.
Nature seems to call out the bigger picture—wind, light, birds—all pointing to something deeper than the power plays. It’s messy, it’s human, and somehow, the Spirit still moves through it all.
When I saw Bishop Barron's review to just run from this, and all mediocre reviews from all the critics, I didn't expect anything good. I was really surprised to actually, really like this movie. So as a Catholic, let's talk about some of the themes in this movie; not everything, but the more meta-level stuff. Why the story matters at all.
First, it gorgeous, and thematic. The detail is beautiful.
But it does come across as an outsiders view of the process. Like the movie Silence, or Angels and Demons, or The Two Popes, the storyteller seems less trying to ridicule, and more trying to express a story he can't fully grasp. He recognizes something special is here, but can't get past the power politics mindset - even as he intuits a deeper presence is going on.
The bickering and politicking doesn't surprise anyone. Or shouldn't. The figures are laughable, taken from the last 10 years of clickbait and headlines. Two two main ones are obvious - to me anyway - that Tedesco and his dramatic flare and fundamentalist rigor, is Cardinal Burke, and Bellini with his moderate views is a riff on Fr James Martin.
But, I was really pleasantly surprised how it ended. Birds, turtles, sunlight, and wind all stand in as symbols of supernatural involvement. It was the last thing I expected, a not to something outside the box.
BICKERING SIDES
Did a 5 part series on Rigidity with Pedro, and the routine takeaway is that the Church never takes the easy obvious path, the compulsive and practical one - such as Tedesco demanding a return to bold definitions, quoting Benedict XVI piecemeal on how we have pandered to the left and lost our identity. He's not all wrong. But hes not all right.
On the other side is Bellini, American shoe in for Fr James Martin, seen as a level headed progressive. it really is very grade level, and feels like a high school play with its simplistic plot. This is the worst they can expect from what happens inside the church. no one immune from scandal. they're not wrong.
The ghost of an obviously pope Francis is no surprise that he would distrust the curia and the hierarchy, since they have been battling him since his election. He's been hard at work creating transparency and reform in things like the Vatican bank. He knew he was taking on the job that Benedict XVI knew he was too old and tired to handle.
But the center and anchor is Fiennes as Lawrence, grilled on both sides. That names has to be intentional. St Lawrence famously was being martyred by bring grilled over hot coals, or something. He told his executioners to flip him over, because he was done on one side.
As much as Lawrence doubts his own prayers and how God answers, he is a passionate presence of Christ in the film. I fell in love with him, the gentility and kindness, and his unflinching resolution to never be bought or controlled. His conscience battles to be true, true to his prayers, amid all the darkness.
They are physically closed down, shuttered inside a vast painted cell, like a metaphor for the mind. Barred with black shutters. Even in this holy process of conclave, men battle God, Ghost, and Christ and each other.
True to the germ and genius of the Church, the unifying and creative option unites them. Pope Francis is adamant that's the true sign of the Holy Spirit.
SOMETHING MORE
The directors obviously don't make a distinction between the Curia, and the Church as mystical bride, of which the hierarchy and curia make up a part, alongside every baptized Christian. You cant blame the directors. We Catholics have a hard time on the daily. Headlines from any country shake our faith every Tuesday.
But at the same time, there's this awareness that the Church is something more. Something transcendent this way comes. The mere inclusion of every scandal among the cardinals reinforces this sense that they are weak and wrong and dark. They have fallen short of the ideal. The ideal is proved because they fail to meet it.
Figures like Lawrence and Cardinal Benitez from Kabul are icons of something true. And Lawrence is the only one to sense the motion of the Spirit moving through others, through nature, and through his own grief.
A GOOD LEADER
In the Disney cartoon of the Sword and Stone, it's a retelling of an old story of a man who would be pope. But he had to learn the language of the fishes, the animals, the birds. Disney adds humility before the whimsy and spiritual warfare of the paraphysical and the angels.
In Conclave, Lawrence speaks fluently with men, enemies, women, and himself. He is more than manager, he is a shepherd of a very specific flock, and he fathers them all carefully.
The twist at the end does demand the greatest test of his faith and trust. it honestly almost feels forced, but its frankly a foil, a story moment meant to reveal the state of Lawrence's soul. Everyone else has talked about that, let's stay focused on Lawrence. What we see is that he has to let go. Whatever he wants to control, like everyone else, he has to completely let go his agenda, his desire to control outcome. That is the state of holiness before God - that level of abandonment and trust.
We see a man seeking to live the beatitudes, at the holy heights of the Catholic Church. There are moments where filming in the Sistine Chapel drove home the cognitive dissonance of the painted tapestries. I've served Mass in early morning granite chapels, where the walls don't hold on to any heat. And this chapel is essentially a rectangle of glittering granite, and a sanctum of stone and marble. It is painted to have hanging cloths, but they're not real. This almost seems like a metaphor for the comfort of the Church, that we feel. It says it is our mother, but that doesn't always land.
But there's a second part to that Chapel. The vast walls feel like they are broken out and opened up into the panoply of reality outside of time. The scene of the Judgement watches them all. The weight and pressure of doing the right thing weighs on Lawrence's soul, every time he looks up and casts his vote. This is exactly what we'd hope and expect from someone serving in this role. The jockeying and ambition in this sanctum fills us with the disgust is should, because we expect more.
Whether or not it actually does happen, that's another question. The central question, I think, is who are you, and what choices do you make, when the world is against you, and you have to find the thinnest sliver of a space to get between the titanic forces grinding away at the world.
A quote from Pope Francis:
"We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology, or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom, and individual freedoms."
If you liked this, you'll love a 3-part series I recorded with Pedro Gabriel from WherePeterIs, over on my SmartCatholics channel.
It's on his latest book, Rigidity: The Sober Truth, and why Pope Francis seems to be targeting traditionalist Catholics. Is he? Or is he going after fundamentalism on all sides of the aisle.
Lawrence is like a Good Samaritan, sickened at the trading inside the holiest walls of the temple. That's a person we should aspire to be, however clumsily we formulate our morals, we're seeking to be true.