Conclave (2024) Felix Neumann (KNA)
The Church lives from its traditions, rules and rites. The makers of Conclave are well aware of this. But do the new cinema film and its final punchline stand up to a fact check?
The new conclave film by Oscar-winning director Edward Berger (Nothing New in the West) is visually stunning. Cardinals in velvet robes, machinations between polished marble floors and magnificent murals and brash nuns who stand up to dodgy Church leaders. Some things seem clichéd, others familiar and close to reality. But what really happens in the Vatican when the Pope dies and a conclave begins? Time for a fact check.
The Pope is dead. Right at the start of the film, priests, nuns, cardinals and bishops crowd into the Santa Marta guest house. The official Vatican director’s book for the Pope’s death, the ‘Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis’, is trying to avoid such a crowd.
What happens if the Pope does not die in the palace?
Unlike in the film, only the camerlengo, the cardinal dean and a few people from the Pope’s inner circle gather at his deathbed after his death. A larger gathering of cardinals or even nuns and priests as in the film is not planned.
However… The current regulations apply to a papal death in the Apostolic Palace, where the heads of the Church used to live. What happens if the Pope dies in the Vatican guest house Santa Marta, where the current Pope Francis also lives, is not actually regulated.
The Camerlengo then takes the fisherman’s ring from the deceased. Unlike in the film, however, it is not broken immediately, but later at a meeting of the cardinals.
The filmmakers do not take the further protocol too seriously either: the Pope is laid out in his pyjamas. However, after comparable photos of the dead Pius XII were released to the public, it was strictly forbidden to show the dead Pope without his liturgical vestments. So, before another circle of people gets to see the dead man, he is first changed.
Even the covering of the Pope’s face with a silk scarf shown in the film does not take place in the death chamber, but only after four to seven days immediately before the funeral. Shortly before the big funeral service, a few high-ranking churchmen gather for a final service. A cloth is placed over the face of the deceased.
Jammers against spies? They really do exist!
While the processes following the Pope’s death are interpreted more freely by the filmmakers, the preparations for the election are depicted quite precisely. For example, the scene involving jammers around the Sistina may seem exaggerated to some – and yet this is exactly what the regulations stipulate. Since 1996, they have stated: “In particular, with the help of the experience of two trusted technicians, they will ensure that secrecy is maintained in the aforementioned rooms, especially in the Sistine Chapel, where the electoral acts take place, by making sure that no recording or audiovisual transmission equipment is introduced into the aforementioned rooms by anyone.”
While the cardinals in the film have to go through security checks and hand over their mobile phones and computers, the regulations only stipulate that they must “abstain” from all communication. To reinforce this obligation, John Paul II forbade “under all circumstances” that technical devices used for the “recording, reproduction or transmission of sound, images or writing” be brought into the Sistine Chapel.
External contacts strictly forbidden
However, while in the film the President of the College of Cardinals repeatedly makes contact with the outside world, this is strictly forbidden in a real conclave. Just by talking to his secretary, the fictional Cardinal Lawrence is treading on thin ice, because: Anyone who “happens to meet one of the cardinal electors” is “absolutely forbidden […] to enter into conversation with him under any form, by any means or for any reason whatsoever”.
Since Pope Benedict XVI, rule-breakers have been subject to excommunication as a criminal offence – i.e. exclusion from the Church immediately upon committing the offence. Previously, the new Pope had to decide on the punishment for this offence.
Cardinal dean on the wrong track
In general, Cardinal Lawrence repeatedly acts on the edge of what is legal. For example, he makes some decisions that can only be made by the Pope or, during the sede vacante, by all cardinals together. Probably the worst is the breach of the seal of confession.
Lawrence uses knowledge from confession to uncover the misdemeanour of a cardinal. Breaking the seal of confession is also punished in the worst case with excommunication at the moment of the offence. However, as Lawrence did not directly reveal the person making the confession, there is probably no excommunication involved in this case.
One of Lawrence’s sole decisions was to admit a previously unknown cardinal to the conclave – a cardinal in pectore (‘in the chest, in the heart’). He was appointed cardinal by the Pope, but his appointment was not made public for security reasons. According to canon law, secret cardinals only have the rights and duties of a cardinal if they are appointed by the Pope, at least to the College of Cardinals. If the pope dies without having made the name public, the secret cardinal title also lapses. Even a certificate of appointment, as presented in the film after the Pope’s death, does not help.
The filmmakers are also not too precise about the actual start of the conclave (‘conclave’, Latin for ‘room locked with a key’). On the day before the conclave, Lawrence says in a meeting that he and the other cardinals will be locked in from 6 pm. This also does not correspond to the protocol. It stipulates that the conclave begins with the ‘Pro eligendo Papa’ Mass in St Peter’s Basilica. In the afternoon, the cardinals then enter the Sistine Chapel, where they swear an oath one by one in public view. Only then are they locked in and shielded from the public.
Minor inaccuracies in the election process
The election process shown in the film, including the request to change the handwriting on the ballot paper, corresponds to reality. However, a small error has crept in during the vote count. While in the film the second of the three counting cardinals reads out the name of the person elected, the guidelines stipulate that the first election worker takes a piece of paper from the ballot box, reads the name silently, then hands it to the second cardinal, who also reads the name silently and then passes the piece of paper to the third. Only the third cardinal then reads the name out loud. The threading of the ballot papers again corresponds to the prescribed practice.
The film continues correctly: at the end of the count, the votes are counted, checked and then burnt. In the past, wet straw or tar was added to colour the smoke. This often only worked reasonably well. Today, chemicals are used to help. Two ovens are available for this purpose: The ballot papers are burnt in one and the cartridges for colouring are also burnt in the second. Potassium chlorate, lactose and the tree resin rosin provide white smoke. The smoke is coloured black with a mixture of potassium perchlorate, anthracene and sulphur.
And what about the finishing touch?
Overall, the filmmakers show great attention to detail – and even if it may come as a surprise, the film’s final punchline is nowhere near as far-fetched as it may seem to some. However, we won’t reveal what it’s actually about at this point.