Conclave: Replacing Christ with the Ouroboros
I wanted to like Conclave. It won the Best Adapted Screenplay award at the Oscars. It is a beautifully composed film. The use of color and shadow, chiaroscuro, resemble a renaissance painting. At times, it delivers insightful dialogue, and its main monologue captures the exhaustion of our era and the concomitant longing for humility. The film is at its best when it critiques ambition, certainty, and egotism. However, Conclave is ultimately a parody of Christianity and uses it as a mask to import its anti-Christian ideology. In fact, Conclave takes ideology to be the antidote to ambition – erroneously. And for this reason, Conclave amounts to sophisticated, beautiful, well-acted propaganda.
Cardinal Lawrence, the protagonist, is masterfully played by Ralph Fiennes. He is tired and plagued by the uncertainty of his era. He is unsure about God, the church, and most definitely, his fellow Cardinals. His doubt, though admirably humble, stems from a lack of conviction and clearly reflects the confusion of our world. Indeed, his monologue on doubt is an ascent to chaos: “God’s gift to the church is its variety. It is this variety, this diversity of people and views, which gives our Church its strength.” Yet he makes no concession for order, which would assuage his anxieties.
While it is true that Christianity is a universal religion, meant to redeem all peoples, Cardinal Lawrence and the film confuse Oneness with Unity. Unity holds individual differences to be real and seeks to reconcile them under a common purpose. Christianity is a religion of Unity under Love. Oneness, on the other hand, considers these differences to be illusory. Its emphasis on diversity, and clear allyship with the predominant neo-liberal ‘Christianity’ of the last 60 years, is raised above the Unity of beliefs and peoples. Conclave calls for Oneness, and the dissolution of all differences. It asks for the annihilation of conviction, the giving up of one’s beliefs, to achieve a parodic ‘unity.’
This is evidenced when Cardinal Lawrence says, “No one person or faction seeking to dominate one another.” He is calling for an equality of beliefs, which immediately undermines his work. Hierarchy, not equality, is a necessity for the elevation of diversity (diversity is above homogeneity). Thus, all views are equal - except for Cardinal Tedesco’s, the conservative who emphasizes the superiority of Christianity over other religions. The only exception to this is “equality under the law,” which is extremely different from “equality of convictions and truth statements.”
The most telling example of Conclave’s aspirations for Oneness is Cardinal Benitez, who becomes the Pope. The creators of Conclave do a good job depicting Benitez as the most enlightened, most serious Christian. (S)he serves as the Cardinal of Kabul, an exceedingly dangerous position, as we are frequently reminded. As I’ve already hinted at, Benitez is intersex (born with a Uterus). This matters. Each character in Conclave represents a different ideological perspective and not an individual, as is typical of postmodern thought. Cardinal Bellini is the liberal. Cardinal Tedesco is the conservative. Benitez is a false Hegelian synthesis. Instead of transcending the Bellini and Tedesco, she synthesizes them by transgressing against their boundaries, by descending to their commonality. Benitez isn’t a Unity. Neither male nor female, Benitez ‘moves between boundaries’ and confuses transgression with transcendence. She is a representation of Oneness. And she is meant to represent Christianity?
The hermaphrodite is not the same symbol as Christ. And yet, it is elevated to the pinnacle of the Church in Conclave. Thus, the film is not Christian. It is an inversion of Christian Unity into Ouroboric Oneness. It trades transcendence for transgression, and worship for rebellion. Conclave is anti-Christian.
There is little doubt that Conclave is steeped in Woke ontology; we are one, distinctions are illusory, and all attempts at distinction are mere patriarchal oppressions. However, as is so often the case with Wokeism, the solution to the problem it attempts to solve can be found in the very thing it denies: Distinction.
When Conclave wrestles with the dangers of ambition in a pious institution, it is at its best. For a moment, it even acknowledges the failures of its ‘good guys.’ For example, Cardinal Bellini is chastised for his ambition and revealed to be as vicious and combative as Tedesco; “this is a war!” The most beautiful use of symbolism in the film is when Lawrence, in a moment of anger, of “othering” Tedesco, writes his own name down for the position of Pope. When he swears that he believes himself the best candidate, contrary to what he has said the whole movie, a bomb goes off. Windows are shattered and light shines on the painting of a peering demon. This demon, which locks eyes with Lawrence, is Lucifer. Literally the “light-bearer.” It is a wonderful motif that shows us the disaster that comes from ambition. For succumbing to the temptation of ambition, Lawrence is unfit to be Pope.
In an era of identity crises, further non-distinction is bound to exacerbate the problem. An identity, Christian or otherwise, is a distinction. To be a Christian is not to be a Muslim. To be a man is not to be a woman. There are real differences between these modes of being, with real consequences. If one hopes to find oneself, one must be willing to not be something. Christianity is a call to sacrifice, to give up purposes outside of God’s. If God has made you a certain way, then a purpose that necessitates that way awaits you. Sacrifice all else.
When Conclave asks, “Who most closely approximates the identity of Christ?” It answers, “nothing.” Not a man or a woman. Not left or right. Nothing. Conclave believes that a total lack of definition is Christ. This does not make the ideology of Conclave Christian – but Ouroboric. It is antithetical to Christianity while utilizing its imagery, institutions, and language. It is a parasite that feeds on its host, eventually killing the very thing it is dependent on.
Catholics who believe that Conclave and its ideology are a form of Christianity are sorely mistaken. Conclave is not Christian. It is a subtle parody of it. The instrumental use language, imagery, and the various tools of film are an attempt to mystify the viewer, to seduce Christians into an anti-Christian philosophy. In Conclave it is not Christ who is sacred but, as was said in the British play, I, Joan, “Trans people are sacred!”