James Netusil – Google

As a former Catholic priest who has taught church tradition and history, I thought this movie was pretty appalling. Yes there were a lot of accuracies, especially in terms of when the pope dies. However the premise of this movie is absolutely ridiculous. SPOILER ALERTS IF YOU READ FURTHER! There is no way on God green earth that the Roman Catholic Church would allow a hermaphrodite to be a pope. Who the hell comes up with this crap? The only way it happens in the movie is because this liberal cardinal decides it’s in his own power and right to not expose this. On one side, it makes me wonder if this movie is bringing to light the extreme liberalism of Pope Francis. In fact, the traditionalist cardinal Portrayed in the movie reminds me of the uber-conservative Cardinal Burke and the fears of the liberals that he would be made pope. Also reflected Is the way that Burke is hated by Pope Francis. In the movie that cardinal was also hated by the pope. Now, I think what the movie does well is how it portrays the greed and power grabbing that I know for a fact occur in these conclaves. In many way, that’s how Francis got elected. It is absolutely forbidden by the church for there to be politicking during conclaves, yet that exact thing happens. Cardinals vie for the power, and then when they don’t have a chance of winning, they put their power behind someone who does that falls in line with their own line of thinking. It’s actually extremely horrifying.