As any lazy high school senior knows, there’s no need to read The Great Gatsby if you can just watch the movie. And it appears that the Catholic cardinals now gathering in the Sistine Chapel for the conclave to choose a new pope have taken a similar approach: Politico is reporting that some of those clerics have watched the 2024 movie Conclave, streaming on Prime Video, to understand how the process works.
Director Edward Berger’s behind-the-scenes look at the selection of a pope received eight Oscar nominations for star Ralph Fiennes’ thoughtful performance and its detail-rich depiction of the rounds of voting that take place.
Politico spoke with a cleric involved in this week’s conclave about how “some have watched it in the cinema,” with writer Ben Munster adding that “the film is seen as remarkably accurate even by cardinals, said the cleric, making it a helpful research tool, especially at a time when so many of the conclave participants have little experience of Vatican politics and protocol.” This ends up being necessary because a majority of the cardinals involved with this selection process have not previously been involved with a conclave before.
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The real-life conclave began Wednesday, May 7th, following Pope Francis’s death on April 21st — just hours before Conclave the movie began streaming on Prime Video. For more, look back to 2015, when Pope Francis released a prog-rock album.
