Bamboozled! Snookered! Hoodwinked! These are perhaps not the best words to use for a movie review. Be advised: the following contains spoilers! There were few people in the theater for the matinee showing. As the film abruptly ended after two hours, all appeared stunned. We simply looked at each other. Fr. Wesly jumped up immediately ready to walk out – or better – run out as the credits began to roll. The trailer had been enticing. It looked like it would be a good movie, despite being sprinkled with fictional political intrigue of an ecclesial nature. The cardinals would gather in Conclave to elect a pope. It’s way above my pay grade, but I could just imagine the hushed and discreet canvassing conversations of the sequestered clergymen of highest rank. From among their number, the next pope would be chosen. The papacy is not an enviable job and no man on earth is truly worthy. A newly elected pope immediately goes to a small antechamber in the Sistine Chapel known as the “Room of Tears,” (Stanza delle Lacrime) so immense will his burden now be. Here he will don a white cassock for the first time. The film is a typical Hollywood portrayal of the Church such that I expected the flaws of more than a few of the gathered clergymen to be exposed. As we’re all now well aware, even cardinals are mere human beings subject to Original Sin. So, a cardinal exposed as having fathered a child many years ago and another caught-up in a heretofore unknown financial scandal didn’t surprise me. Both men were eliminated from among the papabili. Other men were seen either as too liberal or too conservative. Still others were too ambitious. Only one was portrayed, in my opinion, as truly humble having absolutely no desire or interest to sit upon the papal throne. He actually desired to leave Rome and enter a religious community. Furthermore, he harbored some doubts, which all holy men and women do at times. Recall the much-publicized writings of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. No, the one finally elected was the one least expected. Sometimes, in the course of Church history that has been the case. It’s not that John XXIII’s election was a complete surprise, but this so-called “place-holder pope” calling a Second Vatican Council most certainly was. In the film, the unlikely surprise came at the very end as a rather new and obscure Prince of the Church was elevated to the Throne of Peter. The problem in the surprise ending was, quite literally, physical. “He” who had been chosen, had been scheduled to have a hysterectomy! As I said, “surprise!” At the end of the film, after the confession was made, the screen went black. I thought to myself that this is perhaps the hope of many in Hollywood and elsewhere for the Church – that it might just turn off all the lights, go black, and go away as a relic of ages past having no place in a modern world of gender fluidity where walls between men and women; people and nations no longer stand. I sat for a moment surprised and bamboozled. The reality is that the Church is more relevant for our world now more than ever. She is not a “black screen,” but that Light shining in the often thick darkness of modern days. There are far, far better films to be seen on “Vatican intrigue.” Cabrini, for instance, was a well-done film. All of us need to be alert so as not to be “taken for a ride.” There is much slick promotion of this, that, or the other thing in today’s world especially in election season. All folks want is some Quality and Truth, whether it is a show out of Hollywood or a production made in Washington, DC. The Church, Herself, founded by Our Lord remains now and always as a Beacon of Light shining forth that Quality and Truth that folks so much desire. Our “show” doesn’t involve turning down the lights, but rather turning them up. Our Surprise isn’t at the end, it’s at the Beginning just as It always has been – and always will be. So, turn up the lights! Enjoy the “Show,” but stay alert! Don’t allow yourself to be bamboozled!
Peace!
Fr. Wilson