Wednesday, December 11, 2024

My Review of the New Movie Conclave

I watched it last night.  The acting, story line, and cinematography were very good.  I was engaged the entire film. It does good to show the beauty and order of the Vatican structure and conclave process, to communicate the gravity of the papal office and Apostolic See.  There are positive messages about the need for prayer, honesty, integrity, and observing the law.  

That said, it is a typical Hollywood screed against tradition vs progressive reform.  The Dean of the conclave preaches the need for doubt and to set aside certainty, while leaching tolerance.  It does not sound like the Gospel, but liberal humanism.  After all the hyper ambitious machinations of cardinals to elect their popular candidate, in the end they are moved to elect a quiet unknown Latino Cardinal, a missionary fighting social injustice in the third world, who…spoiler alert…turns out to be some kind of hermaphrodite, born with a female reproductive system.  It is a bow to the LQBTQ ideology and more generally relativism. The one Cardinal standing for a restoration of tradition is depicted as a racist, self-serving, and arrogant. 

In conclusion, Mel Gibson should one day make films showing the modernist and progressivist reality in the post-conciliar Vatican, and the need to return to the Church’s sacred tradition which has nourished saints since the Apostles.