Pastor Moline Movie Review: Conclave (spoilers)
I have been reviewing movies and TV shows lately for the News and Notes. Many of them have been worthy of watching, though they might not be completely accurate. Some of them I’ve recommended not watching because they are actually anti-scriptural. Today, I am reviewing the new movie Conclave, which is one that I highly recommend that you do not watch. Before I review the movie itself, I want to tell you why you should not watch it.
In our world, there are many who want to see the church fall and fail. They want to reveal the church to be hypocritical, liars, and even wicked. They are happy when Christianity falls on its face. They want to ascribe what scripture teaches about Satan to the church itself in an effort to disprove our faith. While these efforts are usually logical fallacies (ad hominem attacks and other association fallacies), not everyone is logical. For that reason, undermining the church is constantly being done in TV and film. The really big and easy target is the Roman Church, which is the largest Christian denomination and also the most well-known. And they have opened themselves up to ridicule by quite a number of public scandals since World War II. The secular world loves this, because in their eyes, they are the chief representative of the Christian religion on Earth. If they can besmirch the Roman Church, they believe they disprove Christ. So, they make that their goal.
I am not against calling out the false teachings that have crept into the Roman Church. I pray that the scandals in their church may be repented of and that those guilty of them may receive proper justice here on Earth. I also pray that their sins may not become a stumbling block for the wider Christian Church. And when an attack against one particular branch of Christianity is meant to disprove the entire faith, including ours, we must stand against it.
That is what the film Conclave is, an attack against the wider church through attacking the Roman Church. The movie takes place in a fictional world that parallels our own day. The Pope has died, and a new Pope must be chosen by the College of Cardinals. The main character (played by Lord Voldemort) is the Camerlengo, who organizes the conclave to elect a new Pope. As the cardinals meet, he manages the election process while hiding his own doubts about the Christian faith through various lies.
There are several front runners in the election: the more “progressive” cardinal, who doesn’t care about God’s Word but will be more open to the ways of the sinful world in an effort to make the church more palatable to modern people; the “reactionary” traditionalist, who hates the progressive moves of the church and wants so restore the good old days when the church was strict; and the “compromise candidate,” who is middle of the road. Through the election process, one by one, these cardinals are shown to be hypocrites. One has a love child from an illicit affair with a nun. One is buying votes for his own election (simony). One is a disgusting and angry man, who chews with his mouth open while yelling at everyone and wanting to kill everyone who isn’t Papist. On top of this all, violence is taking place outside the conclave with bombings occurring in Rome.
Finally, a new Cardinal stands up, calls out the hypocrisy of the others, and encourages them to think about the poor and the hungry and the sick. He suddenly is elected Pope over all the other options. But then the twist. This newly elected Pope is also a hypocritical sinner. For before attending the conclave, he had scheduled a surgery to remove his uterus and ovaries before deciding against it at the last minute. After all, “It is who God made me to be,” he states. He’s both man and woman in one body. And that’s the end of the film. (Seriously.)
Now, does the Roman Church have problems? Yes. Is there corruption within the Vatican. Yes. Is there sinful ambition amongst the cardinals? Yes. Is the election of a Pope to sit in the seat of Christ against Scripture? Yes. But this film isn’t merely about the Roman Church. It is written and filmed to show the entire Christian faith as hypocritical and wrong. To say that the corruption of the cardinals is actually the corruption of all Christians. It is designed to put you into the shoes of the Camerlengo so that you share the doubts that he has, so that you see the church as crooked and broken, and so that you despair of Christ.
Our own church has problems. Lots of them. Every church and denomination does. This is because the church is full of sinners. It is full of hypocrisy. It is full of people who do wrong. It is full of liars and deceivers and doubters and questioners. But the veracity of our faith is not based upon the merit of the people in the church. It is based upon the holiness of Christ, who bled and died to forgive the members of the church their sins.
That’s why Christ had to come. That’s why Jesus bled and died. Our hope is not in the church being perfectly sanctified here on earth. Our hope is that Christ has died to forgive the believers within the church, that they might inherit eternal life.
And that is the reason you should not watch Conclave. It pictures the church as a bureaucratic nightmare and removes Jesus from your sight. It wants you to believe that people should embrace their unique brokenness rather than Jesus. It wants you to believe that embracing sin is the way to fix the church. It’s the same secular agenda that is everywhere in our world.
But that’s wrong. Christ is the solution to the brokenness of the church and always has been. He must be the focus, not the bureaucratic nightmares that are necessary to operate in our fallen world. Jesus must be the center of all that we do, and the film Conclave wants you to deny Him. Jesus is our savior; He buys the church to be His bride, warts and all.
As a final side, this coming summer begins our church convention cycle. This June, our Nebraska District Convention will be held, and people elected. July 2026 will be the next Synod Convention, and more elections will occur. The temptation is to think of these conventions like Conclave depicts them, as wicked bureaucracy. But if we repent of this view, if we acknowledge our sin and confess it, and we focus on Christ, His Word, and His gifts, we suddenly are free to participate in a God-pleasing fashion, seeking to do what is necessary to accomplish what is most important here on Earth: the preaching of Christ’s Holy Word to a world of broken sinners. Pray for our Synod that this goal may be accomplished church-wide.
In Christ, Pastor Moline