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I finally watched the film Conclave and, as I had expected, I was distinctly unimpressed by it.
It was very well produced and right up until the end was quite convincingly and realistically portrayed and then…
…it descended into ludicrous farce.
The result is a highly pernicious, not to say diabolical, film.
Why?
Because the beginning air of realism and apparent normality lent an utterly spurious verisimilitude to the end, which was deeply subversive not only of Christian values but even of natural, normal human values.
The Enemy has long since moved on from old-style Marxism and secularism in seeking to destroy Christianity and is presently attempting not only to pervert the churches but also to pervert the whole of humanity by and through confusing and muddling our very sexual differentiation.
He began by causing men to use the word “gender” instead of “sex” to distinguish the two (and only two) sexes. It is much easier to use the solely grammatical word “gender” in a manner that perverts its original meaning and thus to pervert the differences between the sexes.
“Transgender” sounds much less radical than “transsexual” and so the Enemy caused the pundits to use the former expression.
Then came the ludicrous idea that there are not just two sexes but – apparently – over a hundred of them.
Later came all the other idiocies which accompany the general acceptance of transgenderism as if it were normal and not gravely perverse.
Scripture says:
בְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם: כחוַיְבָ֣רֶךְ אֹתָם֘אֱלֹהִים֒ וַיֹּ֨אמֶר לָהֶ֜ם אֱלֹהִ֗ים פְּר֥וּ וּרְב֛וּ
וּמִלְא֥וּ אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ וְכִבְשֻׁ֑הָ וּרְד֞וּ בִּדְגַ֤ת הַיָּם֙ וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וּבְכָל־חַיָּ֖ה הָֽרֹמֶ֥שֶׂת עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ:
[“27. waYiv’rä élohiym et-häädäm B’tzal’mô B’tzelem élohiym Bärä otô zäkhär ûn’qëväh Bärä otäm. 28. way’värekh’ otäm élohiym waYomer lähem élohiym P’rû ûr’vû ûmil’û et-hääretz w’khiv’shuhä ûr’dû Bid’gat haYäm ûv’ôf haSHämayim ûv’khäl-chaYäh häromeset al-hääretz.”]
“27 And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.”
[Gen 1.27-28]
Thus, the creation of man and woman is a making of us in the image of God (in Latin: imago Dei) and directly reflects the Divine Persons.
Satan is now attacking this very concept, a concept that connects us the most directly and intimately with God.
It is a full-frontal attack by the Enemy on man, “the image of God”, which is of the essence of God.
The late Pope Francis, with supreme folly, ruled and legislated in numerous ways so as to aid and abet Satan in his confusion of the sexes which, I need hardly add, is a disaster of monumental proportions.
His declaration, Fiducia Supplicans, seemingly allowing the blessing of sodomy, and his Apostolic letter, Spiritus Domini, allowing women to be inducted into the “lay ministries” of Acolyte and Lector (formerly the sole role of male clergy), spring to mind.
Now comes this film, feeding off the Satanic attack on our very humanity and upon the imago Dei, the image of God in man, which tries to pretend that a person with a uterus (i.e. a woman or, at least, a hermaphrodite) could become the Pope.
In the film, the person who is elected Pope turns out to be a person who had a uterus, i.e. a woman, before it was removed and she “transitioned” into a “man”.
He/she is also a person of Hispanic race (like the late Pope Francis) and thus fulfils another modern, necessary criteria by coming from a supposed minority race.
He/she has also exercised his/her “ministry” in troubled areas and in war zones and, at a climacteric moment in the film, when the cardinals are squabbling with each other, he/she stands up and politely makes a speech that sounds impressive, calm, polite and rational but, in the modern heterodox manner, without saying anything at all of significance.
It has all the empty “hot air” resonance of so many modern, heterodox speeches sounding impressive whilst lacking all substance.
We, the audience, are supposed to be hugely impressed by this person and his calm, polite, rational manner despite the fact that he utters platitudes and nothing of substance.
Likewise, the cardinals are supposed to be impressed and, indeed, so impressed are they that they elect him/her to be the new Pope.
The new Pope elects to be called “Innocent” another deliberately dishonest twist implying that a person who is really a woman putting herself forward to be Pope could still be “innocent” when, in fact, it is the last word in fraud, dishonesty and deliberate guilt.
It is so characteristic of our hugely dishonest age that a Hollywood film would try to portray the ultimate in guilt as if it were, in fact, innocence.
The heterodox and “liberal” Dean of the College (played very convincingly by Ralph Fiennes) is pleased and cured of his gloom and depression and humbly tells his supporters that the new Holy Father would make a much better Pope than he would and therefore not to worry.
However, he is unaware of the truth about the new “Pope” and is taken aside by another cardinal who tells him of “a clinic in Switzerland” but we are not let into the secret right away.
The Dean then immediately goes to the new “Pope” in his chamber, where he is preparing for the public announcement of his election, and puts the information he has learned to the new “Pope”.
The new “Pope”, after briefly hesitating to reveal the sorry truth, then confesses and admits that he had a “laparascopic hysterectomy”, i.e. his uterus was removed, at the Swiss clinic.
In short, the new “Pope” is a woman disguised as a man.
It is the age-old fantasy of anti-Catholics since time immemorial: what if a woman were elected Pope?
Indeed, for many centuries, Protestants tried to put about the entirely dishonest lie that there had been a female pope, one Pope Joan, and that she had given birth during a procession to the horror of the Faithful observing the procession.
It was complete poppycock but nevertheless deceived millions for a surprisingly long time.
The new “Pope” then goes on to explain that he/she offered his/her resignation as a priest to the previous Pope but that the latter did not object and allowed him to continue to “exercise his ministry” as if a non-priest could ever exercise a priestly “ministry”.
The sheer absurdity that any Pope, even Pope Francis, would ever allow a woman to pretend to be a priest knowing that only a baptised male can ever be ordained a cleric, that being the essential “matter” of Ordination, has but to be stated for its impossibility to be immediately manifest.
But the film fatuously continues to pretend that a ruling Pontiff would not only allow such an impossibility but would also connive at its being kept secret from the world in a deliberately dishonest concealment that would not only be dishonest but also criminal and immoral.
But criminality, dishonesty and fraud are but mere nothings to a Hollywood determined to press its diabolical agenda.
Thus does this female pseudo-bishop graduate to being appointed a cardinal and finally to being elected Pope, a fraudulent exercise that was made possible by the criminal dishonesty of the previous Pope in concealing the fact that she was no cleric, no bishop, no cardinal and no man but a woman masquerading as a man.
This blatantly dishonest promotion of the transgender agenda is, ultimately, the aim, point and purpose of the film, as diabolical an aim as one might ever imagine.
Any attempt to ordain a woman would no more make that woman a priest than ordaining a tree or a rose bush would make of them a priest.
Even more fatuously, this fraudulent imposter then, with consummate egoism and arrogance, says to the flabbergasted Dean that “perhaps it is my difference that will make me more useful” as if a criminally dishonest and fraudulent “Pope” could ever be useful to anyone except Satan and the enemies of the Church.
Because he/she appears to be a man, a bishop and a cardinal, and is assumed by the cardinals to be all three, since the truth has been criminally and fraudulently kept from them, by, of all people, the previous Pope, they, thinking him/her to be what he/she falsely claims to be, i.e. a man and a cleric, elect him/her to be the new “Pope”.
But, of course, he/she cannot ever be Pope because the Pope must be a cleric and it is impossible for a woman to be either, just as it is impossible for a circle to be a square or for up to be down or the negative to be the positive.
It is all a deliberate attempt by Hollywood to advance the transgender agenda in the most controversial way possible, seizing the moment when transgenderism is at its height, to suggest such an utterly fraudulent agenda.
Hollywood once again advances its belief that the Catholic Church is not a divine institution but a purely human institution which can be manipulated and deceived like any other human institution.
In so doing, Hollywood simply prepares the way for its own defeat once again, not only because the appointment and consecration of such a person as “Pope” is impossible but because, as time will show, any attempt to undertake such an impossibility would backfire and destroy even further the credibility of Hollywood film productions terminally.
Whilst the fraud would cause deep confusion within the Church, and would doubtless result in many souls being deceived and going to Hell – the Devil’s obvious aim in creating such a scenario – the reality would simply be that, the Church would remain without a Pope, and the Holy See would remain vacant, for so long as the impostor fraudulently sat on the throne of St Peter like some latter day usurper.
Yes, it might be possible for a hermaphrodite to become Pope if that person had mostly XY (male) chromosomes rather than mostly XX (female) chromosomes because then he would genuinely be a man but one born with defects and, by surgery, those defects could be rectified.
For example, if a person had both sets of sexual gametes and gonads, but mostly XY (male) chromosomes, and was thus simply a deformed male, then the female reproductive gonads could be removed surgically and the person allowed to develop exclusively as a male. Such a person could, in theory, be elected Pope.
But the reverse situation would disqualify that person from ever being elected Pope, or Chief Priest, because that person would be a woman and not a man and the “matter” of the Sacrament of Ordination is a “baptised male” and the Pope must be an ordained cleric and thus male.
A person with mainly or exclusively XX chromosomes can never become Pope any more than such a person could become a father, remembering that the Pope is a father figure.
The very word “pope” means “father” deriving from the Latin Papa (translated also as Papa in Italian and Spanish) and so he is referred to as “the Holy Father”.
To pretend that a person with mainly or exclusively XX chromosomes could be a Holy Father is, of course, as ridiculous as pretending or expecting a person with XY (male) chromosomes to become a mother.
What next for Hollywood? A film about the Blessed Virgin Mary actually being a man – the Blessed male Virgin? It would be just a ludicrous and fatuous as this film.
In the Catholic Church, a male priesthood, like a male fatherhood, is not merely a matter of canon law but of theology and thus is not changeable since derived from Scripture and thus from Christ Himself. It is also a matter of Natural Law and thus of the nature of our very humanity and unchangeable for that reason, also.
The idea of an official ministry may be different for Evangelicals since their idea of clerical ministry is not sacerdotal (i.e. priestly and sacrificial) but predicatory (i.e. related to preaching) and that can be done by either sex (although many conservative Evangelicals would not allow that, either).
However, in Catholic theology, the priest can only be a paternal, and thus male, figure just as the father of a family can only ever be a paternal, and thus male, figure.
In Catholic teaching, the female is seen as the counterpart of God’s male image. Hence our emphasis on the Blessed Virgin Mary who is seen as the daughter of God the Father, the mother of God the Son and the spouse of God the Holy Ghost and, in this respect, she represents the Church in its intimate relationship with Christ.
That is why, as Cardinal Newman teaches us, the early Church Fathers called the Blessed Virgin the τύπος της Εκκλησίας (Latin: typos Ecclesiae), literally the “type of the Church” meaning a representation of the Church as a whole.
Thus, sexual differentiation is a reflection of God in man, the imago Dei, the “image” or “reflection” of God.
As St Paul puts it:
ἀντὶ τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος [τὸν] πατέρα καὶ [τὴν] μητέρα καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν. τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο μέγα ἐστίν, ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω εἰς Χριστὸν καὶ εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν.
“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. 32 This is a great mystery; but I speak in Christ and in the church.”
[Eph 5.31-32]
Thus, marriage and family are not just some incidental thing that God gave us because He thought we might like it but it is something absolutely central not merely to the will and plan of God but indeed to His very essence – “to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them” [Gen 1.27].
Therefore, any attack on marriage and the family is a direct attack upon God and an attack upon the sexes is an even more fundamental attack upon God, such sexual differentiation being at the very heart of His Godhead.
Being a mother is a maternal role and being a father is a paternal role and the one cannot become the other.
So, at any rate, teaches the Catholic Church, even if Pope Francis seemed to have forgotten it.
Nevertheless, the theology is so fundamental that it means that a priest or bishop must be a “baptised male” and a pope, even if he were a layman when elected, must be ordained a priest, at least, and preferably also a bishop, if he is to become pope.
Cardinals can be laymen (although strictly speaking it is an abuse since cardinals were originally the parish priests of the Diocese of Rome) but popes must be clerics and only a “baptised male” can be ordained a cleric.
Therefore, only a man in the full sense can ever be Pope.
So, the gravamen of the film is not just poppycock but, worse, it is also dangerous poppycock because it seeks to show that, somehow, the Church itself could countenance the very confusion of the sexes that Satan is currently using to attack and destroy, not only Christianity, but humanity itself.
This is but another example of why St Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order, called Satan “the enemy of humankind” and not just the enemy of God and the Church. Satan wishes to destroy our very humanity.
He does so out of his jealous hatred of man whom God created below the Angels but, to the enraged fury of Satan, raised them above the Angels, so that St Irenaeus of Lyon famously said “Gloria Dei est vivens homo” – “the glory of God is a living man”[1].
In so attacking, Satan is assaulting the very essence of God through His chosen special image, man – the imago Dei, the “image” or “reflection” of God.
No wonder St Ignatius of Loyola called Satan not only the enemy of God but the enemy of man and his very humanity.
This film, Conclave, in a manner now so reminiscent of Hollywood and the international film industry, is merely yet another furtherance of Satan’s attack upon man and upon his very humanity.
Inevitably, however, it will fail since nothing and no-one can ever outwit or outmanoeuvre God.
But, in the process, many millions of souls could still be misled and deceived and so end up in Hell, particularly if, as so often happens, they allow themselves to be deceived preferring the siren voices of the worldly to the sane and safe voice of God, speaking through the Magisterium of the Church.
It is therefore our duty to warn our fellow Catholics against this pernicious and foolish film.
[1] St Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus Haereses IV.20.7, writing against the Gnostic heretics.
