Conclave is now streaming on Peacock, just in time for the holidays. While not technically a Christmas movie, it is certainly a movie about Catholic traditions, and that’s close enough.
Directed by German filmmaker Edward Berger—who recently won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film for his 2022 film All Quiet on the Western Front—with a screenplay by Peter Straughan, Conclave is a mystery-thriller based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Robert Harris. Ralph Fiennes stars as a Cardinal who must organize the election of the next pope, after the previous pope dies. But in the process, he finds the now-deceased pope was hiding a dark secret (or two!) that involves his potential successors.
While Conclave is not based on a true story, it does potentially offer viewers some insight into the real-life secretive process of electing a new pope. Read on to learn more.
Is Conclave based on a true story?
Conclave is not based on a true story. Yes, the Catholic Church is real, and yes, the cardinals do have a papal conclave to vote on a new pope after the current pope dies. But every character in Conclave is invented. They are not based on real people. The pope at the beginning of the movie who dies, Pope Gregory XVII, is not a real pope. He’s fictional, as are all the other characters in this movie.
That said, the author of the original 2016 Conclave novel, Robert Harris, said in a recent interview with Time that, while most of the plot came from his imagination, some of it was inspired by the real-life 2005 papal conclave, which ultimately elected Pope Benedict XVI.
“There’s an alleged diary by a cardinal from the conclave that elected [Cardinal Joseph] Ratzinger as Pope Benedict that describes the ballot process and an attempt to try and stop Ratzinger,” Harris told Time. “There was also a great liberal cardinal from Milan who was expected year after year to become the pope. He was always the favorite, but he only came third after the first ballot. That’s the Stanley Tucci character in the movie and sets up the human drama, the man who’s waited all his life only for it to slip away from him.”
That “great liberal cardinal from Milan” was, according to Time, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who died in 2012. However, despite what Harris told Time, a 2013 report from The New York Times claims that “many Vatican experts said that Cardinal Martini was not necessarily considered a real option, but a gathering point for anti-Ratzinger votes.”
How accurate is Conclave to how a new pope is really selected?
The real-life ritual of papal conclaves is shrouded in secrecy. No outsiders are allowed in, and the cardinals and nuns, and various other employees who are present are forbidden from talking about their experience to the public, and must take an oath of silence, or face ex-communication. However, much of the public knowledge of conclaves comes from a 2005 account of the election of Pope Benedict, from a cardinal who broke his vow of silence and, allegedly, shared his diary with an Italian state television journalist, Lucio Brunelli.
The anonymous cardinal’s account was never officially verified, but most people—including the reporters at The New York Times—seem to think it’s legitimate. If so, then because Harris used that diary as inspiration for his book, then we can imagine that the process seen in Conclave is fairly accurate.
“Rectangular paper ballots are counted, collected, pierced with a needle and burned,” reads the report from the Times. “Exactly four rounds of voting are permitted each day. The winner’s name is intoned in Latin.”
As you see in the movie, technically, any cardinal present is eligible to become a pope. They will keep voting until a two-thirds supermajority is reached. In the case of Pope Francis, that meant 77 votes out of 115 cardinals.
Again, according to the Times: “While the Holy Spirit is supposed to be the guiding light behind a pope’s selection, the cardinals are known to negotiate between the ritualistic voting rounds over dinner and coffee, although the constitution governing papal transitions forbids them to make deals.”
So while it’s likely that not every little detail is accurate, it does sound pretty similar to what happened in Conclave. Just with a little less back-stabbing, drama, and explosions.
