[mephos]

Great article.

A couple weeks ago, on a flight, I watched the movie Conclave (2024) which is about the process of selecting the Pope, in a modern context. I thought it was surprisingly good, but felt like a warning call for the next papal conclave as it illustrated how the power some of these individuals face can corrupt. Fascinating to think how this process would have played out in 16th Century Italy.

[bloomingkales]

You should check out the voting process for electing the Doge of Venice:

https://www.theballotboy.com/electing-the-doge

[vessenes]

There’s some fairly deep statistical analysis out there on the Doge voting. To my memory it was only subverted once, leading to some changes. The analysis I remember concludes they have like one more round than needed to meet goals of the voting in terms of fairness, representation and difficulty of capture. Anyway, it’s a very interesting bit of voting history that lasted a long time.

[mr_00ff00]

This is a crazy process. Although I feel like I am a bit confused.

When they say “reduced by lot” then mean by a lottery? By that same original boy or something else?

They also talked about needing approval from electors, I assume that was from the previous small pool. Can’t exactly determine who they mean.

[bloomingkales]

Best not to overthink think. It’s the best random number generator they thought they had. Even ours suck.

They just wanted a member of the Aristocrat to be in charge is the point. An inauguration validated with whatever appears like merit (but the whole thing is rigged since only one type can ever win - the aristocrat (the entire pool is aristocrats)).

Self selected group :)

Have fun with Doge.

[Exoristos]

It was gratuitously complex the better to hide sleight-of-hand by the powers of the day.

[ohgr]

Sounds easier than getting work done in a corporate who got an agile consultancy in.

[coffeeaddict1]

What makes you think that movie is an accurate representation of the papal selection process? I watched it too and while the videography is amazing, the plot of the movie is clearly dictated by having an agenda rather than accurately trying to portray reality.

[cj]

I saw the movie recently as well.

It’s the first time I’ve encountered any information about how a new pope is selected. Period.

As a not-dumb person, I realize it’s just a movie. But the basic premise of being cordoned off from the outside world, voting until someone is chosen, with the voting going on for days and signaled through smoke by burning the ballets - I assume that basic premise is at least mostly accurate?

Edit: Indeed, after some basic googling, the premise of the movie seems to line up with the basic premise of how a pope was selected centuries ago.

[olddustytrail]

I haven't seen the movie, but I have read the book a couple of years ago, published in 2016, and I presume you could get the same information from there.

It's not really a secret how a pope is chosen, it's just not something most people are interested enough to look up (there's a missing "in" in that sentence but I couldn't decide where to put it).

Robert Harris wrote the book and also wrote Fatherland, Enigma and Pompeii. Those are three different books but I'd definitely read a book with that single title.

[coffeeaddict1]

The premise of the movie is obviously real. I don't think anyone would debate that. I was referring to the portrayal of the political and social dynamics of the process and the views of the Catholic Church.

[aprilthird2021]

I was of the impression there are conservative and liberal factions within the Church, and that electing the Pope is a time that that division comes out? No?

[lo_zamoyski]

Those who say film doesn't influence popular attitudes underestimate how many people treat film as a source of knowledge. Horrifying to realize.

[lenzm]

All sorts of works of fiction have been sources of knowledge for much longer than film has been around. Aesop's fables and parables in the Bible are intentful examples. I don't find this horrifying.

[tshaddox]

What sort of agenda did you think the movie had? I suppose there's a slight humanist agenda, since it portrays nearly all the characters pursuing goals that probably aren't considered the ideal religious goals.

[pchristensen]

The thread of conservative vs progressive cardinals and factions goes through the whole movie, but the ending is the most "agenda" part (although handled subtly).

[tshaddox]

The ending reveal doesn't even fit neatly into the hot-button American political issue you're associating it with. The film is clearly trying to make the viewer work out their view on the issue, and I think the film takes essentially no stance (unless you think that not taking a strong stance in one direction constitutes endorsement of a different direction).

Some might even say the film lacks courage, both by taking no stance on the issue and by presenting a scenario that only vaguely matches the hot-button American political issue.

[rightbyte]

I would say it is rather condemning vs forgiving?

[nodumbideas]

It’s a really interesting point; the postwar conclaves have arguably been some of the least (openly?) political in a history. The next one will probably be more politicized than the last one. You can imagine lots of commentary from non-Catholics on who they think “should win,” tied to political or cultural ideas.

In some ways this is new, but it’s also possibly a reversion to the mean on how it’s worked historically? One difference is that in the 16th century, the impact of the Pope on day to day life was higher (at least in Catholic Europe).

[antognini]

One of the reasons that there were historically so many machinations around the election of the Pope was that the Pope was not only a spiritual leader but a temporal ruler as well. The Pope was the monarch of the Papal States in central Italy (along with a number of other territories throughout Europe that changed hands more frequently). So it was a position of immense political power and wealth.

Starting in the 18th century the Papal States began to be chipped away by European powers, and this culminated in Pope Pius IX losing all control political control of the Papal States in 1870 to the Kingdom of Italy. Since then the papacy's temporal power has been limited to the Vatican City, along with the moral weight of the position.

[eadmund]

> You can imagine lots of commentary from non-Catholics on who they think “should win,” tied to political or cultural ideas.

I’m not Catholic, but I do think that it makes sense for the next pope to be one.

[lo_zamoyski]

> in the 16th century, the impact of the Pope on day to day life was higher

Not so. The mass media have instantly made every sneeze of the pope common knowledge, or common fake news. In prior centuries, the pope's prominence in the consciousness of daily life was low. He was a remote figure. You wouldn't hear of his death for weeks.

[cguess]

If you can, try to rewatch it on a proper screen. The clothing and sets are incredible and the costume design and production design were nominated for an Oscar. It really deserves to be seen large.

[torcete]

I saw it on a cinema, and it is truly worth watching it on a big screen.

[quickthrowman]

The first season of the show Borgia: Faith and Fear has an episode or two about the papal conclave that happened after Innocent VIII died, Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) ends up winning the election and there’s plenty of backdoor dealing going on.

[hippich]

I know nothing about this stuff. What kind of power a pope has that it is so competitive? I enjoyed the movie, but no idea what would be motivation of the people there.

[andrepd]

He's gonna be the leader of the oldest continuously functioning organisation in the world, with 1.5b (nominal) members.

It's a big deal x)

[mbg721]

The Pope directs the spiritual priorities of his Bishops and thereby all Catholics, a lot of people. He's not going to be able to say "Kill, fornicate, and steal now!" without losing all credibility, but he can say, "We're going to ask for contributions monthly for X good cause." There's also money and diplomatic effort to be directed to dioceses around the world.

[_fat_santa]

Tangentially related but I watched a Wendover video on The Vatican[1] yesterday and it helps explain the political side of the papacy.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zQ8cFF3DG8

[agubelu]

To add to this, if anyone's interested in the history and geopolitics of the Vatican and understands Spanish, here's an excellent podcast that goes way more in depth about the topic:

https://youtu.be/apCBwjxaLO4