Breaking News: Babylon has made another movie about Babylon—more at 11.

The relationship between Hollywood and the Roman Catholic Church is fascinating, but neither side seems interested in discussing it.

Hollywood prides itself on being the antithesis of the teachings of Jesus Christ. A town that glamorizes every sin against God imaginable from homosexuality to idolatry. Ask yourself why the supposed “one True Church of God” has such a deep-embedded relationship with an immoral industry. 

The Jewish influence in Hollywood is about as noticeable as a dead whale washed up on the beach,  but Judaism isn’t the only religion that has prominence in Tinseltown. For nearly a hundred years, audiences have watched Hollywood-backed films and television shows promoting Roman Catholicism as the true form of Christianity. 

Whenever you watch a horror movie that requires an Exorcism of a demonic spirit, they always call a Catholic priest. Whenever you see “Christians” in cinema practicing their religion, it’s always inside a confessional booth of a Roman Church. Whenever a character prays on screen, you’ll never hear the name Jesus Christ or Lord but you’ll probably hear veneration to his mother Mary.

You are not deceived for those of you who are scholars at noticing trends. Hollywood and the Roman Catholic Church have had a very vibrant relationship since the days of the Hays Code. Several Hollywood stars traveled to the Vatican a few months ago to meet and venerate the Pope directly. 

A Jewish-owned business selling Catholic theology to Protestant America? It’s true and there is a buzz in Hollywood about a little film called ‘Conclave’ which some are calling an early favorite to dominate Hollywood award season right around the corner. How do two opposing ideologies find themselves at the same table? The answer is complete biblical illiteracy, leading us to the film’s plot from Focus Features.

‘Conclave’ takes place in the world where the pope has just died of a heart attack meaning that Rome does not have a head of their church that represents the entire world. As a result, a Papal conclave is called where the College of Cardinals gathers together for the monumental task of electing the new pope. 

The election narrows the choices down to four viable candidates: Cardinal Bellini who is trying to reform Rome to a more liberal view such as the last Pope; Cardinal Adeyemi who looks to be the first black pope in the history of the Papacy; Cardinal Tremblay who is a conservative member of the church from Canada and the odds on favorite, and Cardinal Tedesco who is a traditionalist who wants to abandon parts of the Second Vatican Council including peaceful coexistence with other religions such as Islam (Nostra aetate). 

The secluded Cardinals spend the next several days deliberating who should be the next head of the church. A scandal behind the scenes threatens the legitimacy of the papacy as it turns out the previous Pope may have been directly involved in sabotaging several candidates who he deemed unfit for office. Secrets and lies are exposed over the next couple of days which renders an unlikely candidate from Kabul to be the dark horse however he also has a secret of his own that could damage his credibility.

From the perspective of a Gospel-believing Christian, who understands being a Christian is all about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, Conclave is a biblically illiterate film about a biblically illiterate religion. 

At face value, the movie is about the political struggle behind the closed doors of the Vatican regarding who should be deemed worthy of the title of “Holy Father”. However, there’s a lot more than meets the eye. From the eyes of liberal Hollywood, the movie is a critique of the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church that praises the liberal movement within the church, framing them as the heroes of the story. Meanwhile, conservative-minded Cardinals are viewed as the villains for remaining faithful to the traditions of Rome.

One side views this film as a takedown of the “narrow-minded views” of Catholicism while the other side views this film as a fundamental attack on their religion from secular progressives hostile to their traditions. But where is the truth of this argument? Let’s start with the very premise of the movie which is the entire Rock of the Roman Catholic faith… the Pope.

The office of the papacy is Roman Catholic dogma that sprouts from the belief that Jesus made the Apostle Peter the head of his church which is headquartered in Rome, aka the Vatican. This belief also says that whoever the active Pope is, he is representative of Jesus on Earth, hence the title “Holy Father.”

This belief flies in the face of Biblical scripture that shows us that Peter never accepted the title of the head of the Church of God but rather a fellow elder among the other apostles. Not to mention the little historical support that Peter ever went to Rome but was rather killed by the Roman government.

The blasphemous title of “Holy Father” also flies in the face of the words of Jesus saying call no man your father here on Earth as well as the Bible directly stating that no man is Holy but God himself. You must first buy into the legitimacy of a title that has no biblical or historical support outside of misinterpretation in Matthew 16 to buy into this movie.

The bread and butter of ‘Conclave’ which will likely see it receive multiple nominations during the 2025 award season will go to the visual directing of Edward Burger and the cinematography of Stéphane Fontaine. There is no argument that conclave is one of the most beautifully shot movies of 2024 which perfects the art of camera work, costume design, and contrasting colors.

Audiences will marvel at the film’s romanization of the colors of purple and scarlet representing the cardinals and archbishops of Rome. Interestingly enough, those colors of purple and scarlet are specifically mentioned in Revelation 17 of the Bible describing the identity of what is referred to as the Babylon the Great aka Mystery Religion. 

A film about a secret election for a religion that adorns itself in purple and scarlet may be a reference too deep for your average moviegoer to understand but those who know scripture will have red lights flashing throughout the film. Let’s not take our Hollywood friends off the hook either.

The story is the perversion of biblical truth which frames itself under the false guise of “good”.  In the story, Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence played by Ralph Fiennes is the Cinematic face of the liberal movement behind the Roman Catholic Church that seeks to loosen the church’s bond towards tradition and change the foundations of the church that are far more acceptable to those with a liberal worldview.

The film frames those who seek to maintain or return to the more traditional view of the Catholic Church as the bad guys as they are more likely to oppose the normalization of homosexuality and the tolerance of other religions such as Islam, because diversity is our strength. The film mirrors the problems of the Vatican similar to the problems of the American government,  a secret group of unelected leaders who conspire behind the scenes to reshape and reform an institution to their image while parading themselves as the heroes for doing so.

In an election year,  this movie highlights the problem of liberal perversion and requires the audience to be ignorant of biblical truth to sell the story. No better example than this than the film’s twist ending where after several Popes are exposed for internal corruption, the Council of Cardinals chooses to go for an unknown Cardinal who makes one speech towards the end of the film and decides that he must be the next leader of the church.

Only to find out after they cast the vote that the Pope they just elected is intersex aka hermaphrodite. Some Catholic leaders were furious by this revelation as it was viewed as Hollywood attempting to pervert Catholicism into being more LGBTQ-accepting by electing someone who can technically qualify as a trans-Pope.  On the flip side, many Catholics would likely support this decision at least in the United States of America where nearly half of people who identify as Catholic are left-leaning Democrats.

The essence of this story comes down to secrecy and discord. Two sides are at war with one another over how they believe the religious institution of Catholicism should be run. However, both sides have nothing to do with Christ Jesus, Just as the name of Jesus is rarely used in the film ultimately this is a story about a religious system, not the God who supposedly created this religious system.

From an objective standpoint, ‘Conclave’ is a wonderfully shot movie that is beautiful to look at. From a cinematic standpoint,  this is a movie that will only play up to audiences who know all about religion but know nothing about Christ.

2/5

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