‘Conclave’: Electoral Fight for Christianity’s Future

The Gospel Coalition ^ | 2024 | Brett McCracken

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The release of Conclave mere weeks before the U.S. presidential election is no accident…The conclave’s primary factions fall roughly along a progressive/conservative split that mirrors American politics. To be sure, there is a divide in the Catholic Church between those who prioritize conserving tradition and those who seek an updated, more inclusive church.

It’s not that the filmmakers want the church to go away entirely. They just want a church that matches their progressive views…“Let us pray for a pope who doubts,” one cardinal says in a pivotal sermon. “Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.”

“Certainty” is framed in Conclave (as it often is by progressive Christians) as the most egregious sin…The church isn’t the past, one liberal cardinal asserts; the church “is what we do next.” He might as well have been advocating for a church defined by “what can be, unburdened by what has been.”

In the end, the victor is a dark-horse, mysterious candidate who wasn’t even on the original invite list: Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz), who has led Catholics in some of the hardest places in the Middle East (Baghdad, Kabul). He wins because he appears to be the most humble, Jesus-like servant leader—decidedly not seeking power.

But here’s the twist: Benitez isn’t a he at all. He’s intersexual, having been “assigned” male at birth and living as a man, even though he later discovered he had female reproductive organs.

When Lawrence discovers the secret and confronts Benitez, the new pope (who tellingly chooses the name Pope Innocent XIV) says, “I am what God made me,” a familiar line in the LGBT+ movement. “I know what it is to exist between the world’s certainties,” he adds, in a binary-defying statement intended to be the film’s mic-drop line…

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Blessed Lent to you as well!