Warning: This review contains major spoilers.
How realistic is “Conclave,” the new church-political thriller in which Stanley Tucci and Ralph Fiennes play cardinals navigating a contentious, even literally explosive, papal election?
The film is generally very well-researched, and its portrayals of the voting portions of the conclave follow the proceedings exactly as described by former participants and Vatican reporters: After the order “Extra omnes!” (Latin for “Everyone else out!”) the cardinals are locked in the Sistine Chapel—the source of the term conclave, which comes from the Latin cum clave for “with a key.”
To vote, each cardinal receives a card that says “Eligo in Summum Pontificem” (“I elect as Supreme Pontiff”) and writes in a name. They each approach the ballot container individually, swear an oath and deposit it. Three cardinals who have been drawn at random serve as scrutineers: One reads each vote aloud, the second looks at it and verifies that that is the name on the ballot, and the third sticks a needle and thread through the word “Eligo” on the card, creating a bundle of ballots.
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There is no announced count, so cardinals keep track of who has received how many votes on individual notepads, as they can be seen doing in the movie. (Sharing these counts incurs the penalty of automatic excommunication, but some notepads still make it out of the room and into the hands of journalists like America’s Gerard O’Connell, who wrote the definitive account of what happened inside the 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis.) When a candidate reaches the required two-thirds majority, applause breaks out.
Of course, there are many elements the movie leaves out in the interest of time, including the several days of informal conversations (“murmuratio” in Latin) and “general congregations,” or meetings, that the cardinals hold before the conclave to discuss the needs of the church—and what papal characteristics might be best suited to meet those needs. Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) gives a taste of this in what director Edward Berger describes as a homily (though no visual cues indicate that the speech happens in a Mass) just before voting starts; he encourages the cardinals to elect a pope who doubts. Likewise, the film’s depiction of the papal death rites leaves a bit to be desired.
Kurt Martens, a canon law professor at the Catholic University of America, said he watched “Conclave” in theatres with a notepad in his lap. While some aspects, like the destruction of a dead pope’s ring in his room, were accurate, others were not. “Zipping the pope’s body up in a bag?” Dr. Martens remarked. “Please!”
(Ordinarily, the pope’s body is displayed for several days of mourning following his death.)
Audiences concerned with accuracy, though, will likely have the most questions about the movie’s twist ending, when the newly-elected Cardinal Benítez (Carlos Diehz), reveals to Cardinal Lawrence that he is intersex. (At the end of the film, Benítez is pictured with the late pope’s pet turtles—animals that have been observed in nature to have external male organs but internal female ones.)
In the movie’s first major twist, the then-unknown Cardinal Benítez appears at the conclave with a letter saying he had been secretly appointed in pectore by the late pope—a real category, meaning “in the pope’s heart,” that is often used for cardinals ministering in places where Christians are persecuted. Cardinal Benítez, in the movie, is the bishop of Kabul, Afghanistan, and so the late pope appointed him in pectore for his own safety.
Dr. Martens recalled that Pope John Paul II created Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei, the bishop of Shanghai, a cardinal in pectore in 1979, only announcing his creation as cardinal publicly in 1991. The cardinal himself, Dr. Martens pointed out, did not know that he had been made a cardinal until a private meeting at the Vatican in 1988.
In the film, Cardinal Benítez describes having a private meeting with the pope, so it is possible he was told of his appointment, but in real life, even cardinals in pectore who do know that they have been appointed do not vote in conclaves.
Still, any baptized Catholic male can be elected pope, so even if Cardinal Benítez could not have voted in a conclave, could he have been elected?
Ultimately, Dr. Martens explained, the question comes down to whether Cardinal Benítez, as an intersex person, could validly receive ordination—because in order to be made pope, he would have to be ordained a bishop. Church teaching requires that only biological males can be ordained.
In the movie, Cardinal Benítez explained that he always believed he was male, went through seminary and was ordained; later, while having his appendix removed, his surgeon discovered that he had a uterus and ovaries. Heartbroken, thinking his ordination was invalid, he scheduled a laparoscopic hysterectomy and wrote to the Vatican to request dismissal from the priesthood. (Any priest wishing to leave the priesthood has to have his request approved by the pope.)
The movie’s late pope, instead of dismissing him, brought him to the Vatican and told him to continue his ministry—signaling that, at least in the movie, the pope saw no problem with an intersex person being ordained.
Dr. Martens explained that canon law says nothing about intersex people, and so it would be up to specialists to determine whether the person is canonically male and thus able to be ordained. “Is it with the chromosomes that you determine if they’re a man or a woman? Or if they have some attributes?… That’s the canonical, theological question,” he said.
Who would have the final say? It is hard to imagine that in a real conclave, the Vatican would usher in scientists and surgeons to prove the validity of a newly elected pontiff—a plot twist even Hollywood could not conjure up. “It’s an interesting question,” Dr. Martens said. “I don’t have a final answer for you.”
Read next: “The ending of ‘Conclave’ will have audiences buzzing. But is it worthy of the film’s brilliance?”
