Why we care about the conclave

In the last week of April, millions of mourners gathered in Rome to honor the passing of Pope Francis after his controversial 12-year pontificate. Today, a much smaller but more significant gathering will begin: a conclave of 133 cardinals to select the next head of the Roman Catholic Church, and as Catholics believe, the vicar of Christ on earth. Given what’s at stake—supreme doctrinal, pastoral, and indeed juridical authority over the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics, and substantial moral authority over world leaders—every conclave is a major global event, but this year’s is likely to draw even more attention than usual. 

Part of that is merely a matter of pop culture, given the success of last year’s Oscar-winning film, Conclave, which masterfully depicts the arcane procedures governing this greatest of all elections, as well as the ugly all-too-human politics bubbling just underneath the pious ceremony. (It also ended with a completely implausible pope.) But this just raises the question of why such a film generated so much buzz, and why are our imaginations captivated by red-hatted men muttering Latin in shuttered chapels? For evangelical Protestants in particular, the interest is striking. Our parents’ generation paid little attention to the internal affairs of the Roman Catholic Church, but today, many evangelical publications speculate on the leading papal candidates.