bummed out by the ending (spoilers)

I agree with you, it was disappointing. Here he was on his way to becoming the youngest Pope in history and bam.....we find out he's the actual bad guy!
Btw, I am Catholic and also have respect for both science and religion, lol.

I see what you mean and, let me tell you, that was the film's fault. I read the book and it's totally different.

From now on this is going to be one of those horrible "why the book was great and the movie was bad" comments (book spoilers here, obviously):

They destroyed the camerlengo's character in the film. In the book it's pretty much the same till the scene when they discover that he's the bad guy. But in the book, after this, Patrick admits that he had killed the pope because he knew that he had commited a sin having a son with a nun. However, Strauss (I think it was Strauss) tells him that in fact the pope had never commited a sin because it was done through in vitro fertilisation (another point in the science/religion debate in this film) and that Patrick was the actual biological son of the pope. That's why he commited suicide, because of his regrets, and not because of the shame, as it's seen in the film.

So I think the plot twist was way more effective this way and the suicide had more sense. That's why I say that the film destroyed the camerlengo. In fact it's the only thing I have to complain about it, but, being him my favourite character ever, I felt really upset.


You musn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.

I think part of the problem was that the movie set out to make the camerlengo look like the weak guy, always getting beaten up by the clergy and getting kicked back.

In the book, this didn't really happen as he asserted his authority quite early on and people wised up to it quickly. There was not the story-long portrayal of injustice to the camerlengo, in fact he was a great leader already.

Plus in the book, I don't believe he is trying to become the pope at all. I'm not even sure he knew that he was going to fly the heli (though it is safe to assume he wanted to survive). Even if he did, I didn't get the impression that he did it for reasons of self-serving in order to become the pope. The whole "adoration" law only comes in as an after thought at the end, as if the camerlengo was already pope by virtue of the chanting (didn't need the permission of the others) and he was briefly pope (until his suicide) but never knew it. A kind of small ironic twist.

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