MovieChat Forums > Conclave (2024) Discussion > Priest warns NOT to watch ‘Conclave’ mov...

Priest warns NOT to watch ‘Conclave’ movie, calls it ‘mockery of our faith’


https://catholicvote.org/priest-warns-not-watch-conclave-movie-mockery-of-faith/?mkt_tok=NDI3LUxFUS0wNjYAAAGWXNlT9nwe80j2yvq3bOEa-4mj-uLjAu2QnSuEsak4rfl0KnmlBh1WjNcFhrd5Crq-mp3JJq3kta7GaoF5wjIrI0QzJSLQ6-15-GOtU31S4g

This film “is about eroding salvation, about mocking salvation, this is about discrediting the Holy Roman Catholic Church,” said Fr. Jonathan Meyer of All Saints Parish in Guilford, Indiana, in a recent YouTube video message. Fr. Meyer decried various quotes from the movie, including one which he denounced as heresy. Further, in a subversive final plot twist, the movie also evidently disregards the fact that the pope has to be male.

The newly elected pope turns out to be a biological woman, who was “raised a man,” and “looks like a man,” Fr. Meyer said. Fr. Meyer emphasized Church teaching that a woman cannot be ordained a priest. He referenced a 1994 statement from Pope St. John Paul II, who said: “I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

“There has to be a point where you say, ‘Absolutely not, enough is enough,’” he said. “‘I don’t need to see ‘Conclave,’ and neither do you.’”

A professor writing for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ Angelus News also criticized the movie, which is based off of a novel by Robert Harris, as “a badly written, poorly researched, half-baked mystery that takes itself too seriously but turns at times into unwitting comedy.” Stefano Rebeggiani wrote in his review of the movie that “It is so simplistic, ignorant, and shallow that it feels like it was written for an audience of 12-year-olds.”

Rebeggiani is an associate professor of Classics at the University of Southern California. Acknowledging the film’s anti-Catholic bias, he criticized it for being “just plain bad,” noting that it is filled with “a whole lot of cliches and stereotypes.” When a new, mysterious so-called cardinal enters shortly after the film begins, Rebeggiani explains that it is evident who will be the next pope. While all the other cardinals “are corrupt and two-faced,” focusing on wealth and power, this new so-called cardinal is not, and rather focuses on those in need.

Rebeggiani also described a speech given by this so-called cardinal as “so full of platitudes it could have been written by ChatGPT.” “I am not surprised that a movie so bad was produced,” Rebeggiani concluded: “I am surprised to see a respected cast of actors associated with such uninspiring material.”

Since most film critics are atheists, agnostics, or pagans, they will gush over a film like this. The only movies they like about Catholics or Christianity are those that attack it.

When the pedophile priest scandal hit its peak, the Catholic Church found that pedophilia represented only 2% of priests, the same as the general population.

reply

Catholic reviewer: "artful, but deeply flawed"
https://aleteia.org/2024/11/02/the-movie-conclave-is-artful-but-deeply-flawed?mkt_tok=NDI3LUxFUS0wNjYAAAGWr3csBJ5rxyrUEmxW_5z2LAO2TLmizkqH4AlrA9CSDV10cUbyiWhmQhjoFGkBKhH-vTkqvA-m7utlIJh6k4t2_aydT5aKE8y24EtwFmtMVA

"...conclaves do include lots of politics; but they aren’t only or even mainly about politics...The film’s agenda is evident, though, when these characters make misleading statements, for instance about a former pope being part of the Hitler Youth (which every German boy was registered for involuntarily in 1940s Germany). But you can also tell it has an ideological agenda, because the film ignores what real conclaves focus on."

"in the last two conclaves, cardinals elected those who focused on Christ. The two cardinals’ speeches in this movie were about doubt, and embracing other faiths. The most significant reference to Christ was a claim that Jesus was uncertain about God’s will because he said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” A cardinal would know that Jesus was quoting the first line of Psalm 22; a sign that he was certain that this question had an answer.

.... French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin: “...In the conclave, we can talk about whatever we want. But no one can tell you who to vote for. No one has the right to say who the other should vote for or who they have voted for,” he reports. But the cardinals in the movie Conclave talk of little else.

"...A prominent cleric in the movie is revealed to have a complicated physiological makeup — presenting as male but also having female physical characteristics. This is a rare condition, but is not unknown to the Church in the way the movie suggests. ...The Medieval Church treated such hermaphroditic cases with care and concern, and that is what canonists today do, also. The Church doesn’t demonize people in these difficult situations, but welcomes them into the full sacramental life of the Church — but, along with other physical impediments, this condition bars them from ordination.

In a recent case, when it was a discovered a priest was ineligible for ordination, the Church didn’t hesitate to declare invalid the sacraments he himself had conferred. It wouldn’t hesitate to so in a case like the one in the movie, either.

In brief, then, Conclave is artfully deceptive
. It tries to create confusion where there is none; it tries to demonize certainty, but only certainty it disagrees with; and it is missing what actually makes its Roman settings significant: Their place in the continuing mission of Jesus Christ on earth."

reply

How about a spoiler warning next time dude?

reply

Actually never mind. I was planning to see this but wouldn't want to give a production like this my money, so thank you for your service.

reply

Although not a Catholic (though born, raised & educated as one), I didn't think there was anything mocking - other than the venality of some of the unsavory characters, which DO exist IRL. Look up the Vatican banks scandal or -the middle ages- for some examples. They still exist - I'm not slagging on the RC church - ANY large org. is going to have some corruption, as we are constantly reminded, in and out of the Church.

And how sweet, Priests are JUST EXACTLY as likely to offend against children as the gen. pop. Leaving aside all the obfuscating/denying/paying off/denial in the Church over decades.

My interp. is that the new pope was intersex (having both sex organs) - which would be the PERFECT biological/metaphysical insult to the patriarchy - which you could consider, perhaps, mocking - but in another way, a challenge.

When I walked out of the theater, I thought the ending contrived, but upon further review, found it artful. But then, I'm not paid to support the status quo of the RC Church like any Priest in fact is, or usually does.

reply

I think all the sex abuse scandals did a good job of that already.

reply