When I first read Robert Harris’ book Conclave, a Christmas present, I couldn’t put it down. It was thrilling and compelling drama easily on par with the first Harris novel I read as a teenager (Fatherland). When I finished it, I almost threw it against a wall. The same sense of frustration and disappointment marred my experience of the film, starring Ralph Fiennes.
This Article contains major spoilers for Conclave (both the book by Robert Harris and the recent film starring Ralph Fiennes).
Last Friday a sizable group from my Seminary community, and several of the priests in the house, went on an outing to see “Conclave” - based on the book of the same name by Robert Harris. It would be an understatment to say that this film has been controversial (Bishop Robert Barron told his readers to “run in the opposite direction” rather than seeing this film) so outside the cinema a few of us couldn’t resist a Father Ted Joke and posed for a photo as if we were protesting the film “Down with this sort of thing!”
The film has issues. Big issues, which I will talk about, but I want to give credit where it is due. Harris’ book is a masterful mystery novel which the director (Edward Berger) and cast (Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, Sergio Castellitto, and Lucian Msamati) have translated beautifully to the silver screen. The characters leap from the page to the screen fully realised by their counterparts - Fiennes’ interpretation of the “manager” Lomeli (Lawrence in the film) is the perfect picture of a man of the Church trying to hold everything together, Lithgow the ideal scheming careerist, and Tucci the epitome of the dismissive and arrogant Liberal. Though Msamati’s Cardinal Adeyemi and Castellitto’s Cardinal Tedesco get less airtime than their book counterparts, and certainly less than I would have liked, they too inhabit Harris’ characters perfectly. The drama and intrigue is consistent throughout the film, and it demands your full attention throughout.
Not only is it suberbly acted and shot, the costume design also stands out as worthy of praise. The decision to dress the Cardinals in a semi-medieval version of their habit (longer mozzettas and their dress in a deeper richer shade of red, obviously made from a heavy wool, and worn with long unadorned surplices) is nothing short of artistic genius - making the film feel elegant and timeless. Likewise the Mass-vestments worn by the Cardinals (tragically no Mass was depicted in the film) were beautiful re-creations of Catholic vestments from years gone by. Frankly, I hope those responsible for making the actual Cardinalatial habits are taking notes. If the costume designer for Conclave (Lisy Christl) had been hired by the French Bishops instead of Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Notre Dame’s re-opening might not have been marred by the utterly tasteless designs seemingly sponsored by Lidl.
There’s the good. Now for the bad.
Where Harris’ plot is gold-standard, his characters are flat one-dimensional caricatures designed to stand in for a faction rather than standing on their own, and (in the book) are transparently based on real members of Francis’ Curia past and present. The only accurate part of their characterisation is the utter horror of the more liberal cardinals that Cardinal Tedesco supports big families, the Latin Mass, and acting as if the Catholic faith might actually be the truth. Other than his extreme outburst towards the end of the film, it isn’t clear why he is to be regarded as the villain other than that he represents the opposite of the Liberal project clearly dear to Harris and his protagonists. This is the least of the film’s problems, and it is largely forgiveable thanks to the strength of the plot and the leading actors’ stirling performances.
Where the film really falls apart, however, is in its faithfulness to the books’ two major plot points.
The first egregious fault comes in the midpoint of the film - Cardinal Lawrence breaks the seal of the Confessional. He hears the Confession of a Nun, who gives him damning evidence of Cardinal Adeyemi’s unfitness to be Pope. Leaving aside the racist caricature upon which this plot point relies (an African Cardinal who had an inappropriate sexual relationship and an illegitimate child) it’s also an egregious misunderstanding of the Confessional. A Confessor is absolutely forbidden, on pain of excommunication, to reveal anything he has learned in the confessional to anyone for any reason. If a real Cardinal had acted as Lawrence does in the film, breaking the seal by using what he has learned to blackmail another Cardinal, he might have succeeded in derailing that Cardinal’s election, but would also have been immediately excommunicated and unceremoniously removed from the remainder of the Conclave. Aside from being an ignorant inaccuracy, this plot point also endangers souls - if anyone believes that priests might use their confessions for ulterior purposes and avoids the confessional as a result. It was lazy and irresponsible of Harris to write it, and frankly ought to have been removed from the film and re-worked to avoid the inaccuracy. Had the screenwriter or director followed the example of the directors of Catholic films gone by and hired a decent priest advisor it could have been avoided!
The second fault is the final plot twist: Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz) the mystery Cardinal created in pectore by the late Pope, turns out to have been a woman all along. In the book, relying on another unfortunate cultural and racial stereotype, she is a Filipina woman born with ambigous external genitalia and raised as a man by her parents. The film makes her Mexican and removes the element of ambiguity from her backstory, but retains the “secretly a woman raised as a man” plot point. As I remarked at the time - a female Pope was acceptable to the screenwriter but an Asian Pope was clearly still beyond the pale!
There is so much that can be said about this final twist, but for me watching the film (and reading the book) all I can express about it is disappointment. Harris’ novel was, at its core, a detective novel. The main character Lomeli/Lawrence is given responsibility for managing the conclave, and guided by providence or good fortune begins to sniff out incriminating evidence against each of the leading contenders, beginning to make a decent pitch for himself as a candidate in the process - first by his impromptu homily on the spiritual value of doubt, then by his strength in exposing the corruption of the other candidates for the good of the Church. In the book, and the film, He is poised to be elected until a bomb hits the Vatican and the Cardinals turn instead to the soft-spoken Archbishop of Kabul (Benitez) who makes an impassioned plea for peace. Lomeli/Lawrence finds out about Benitez’ gender after the election, but before it has been announced to the world.
If Harris had been consistent, Lomeli/Lawrence would have exposed this too: his overarching purpose through the whole novel being to avoid scandal and schism, seemingly guided by the Holy Spirit, to protect the Church. Yet instead he immediately resolves to cover up the truth, telling Benitez how to buy the silence of those who know already as if this could prevent the news coming out altogether - doubtful, given that they got the information from publically available sources like Benitez’s visa application. It stands against the essence of Lomeli/Lawrence’s character and it breaks the suspension of disbelief. No Cardinal today would allow a woman to be elected to the papacy, even if they supported womens’ ordination because the covert election of a woman, if it ever became public knowledge, would cause an immediate and likely irreparable schism of apocalyptic proportions. It would ter the Church apart and it likely would never recover.
If the book had been consistent, if Harris hadn’t lost his senses at the end, the truth would have been outed and either Lomeli/Lawrence or Tedesco would have been elected. The book wasn’t consistent, the film followed its lead, and an excellently paced, brilliantly acted, artistic masterpiece was utterly derailed in the process.
Down with this sort of thing!
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