Conclave: Life Imitates Art

Figuring that a fictional account of a papal conclave would be more entertaining than real life, I watched the movie Conclave on Amazon's Prime Video this weekend. The film had political intrigue, dirty tricks, messages from the late Pope and deep diving into cardinals' personal histories. One by one the leading candidates withdraw because of these revelations.

Luis Antonio Tagle

Pietro Parolin

Apparently I was too quick to dismiss real life.

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.

Parolin, for good measure, has shown he won’t be pushed around. Since the deliberations began, he has revealed the existence of not one but two letters from beyond the grave by Pope Francis, excluding one of the cardinals from the sacred vote.

By the end of the movie a Pope is elected, but only after some twists, turns, and an inspired speech. I doubt that we will experience such drama at the real conclave, but as we have seen so far, life is full of surprises.