How Accurate Is The Movie 'Conclave?' Expert Discusses After The Death Of Pope Francis

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On "Forbes Newsroom," Don Clemmer, a writer and former staffer with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, discussed the film 'Conclave'

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00:00another one of the issues that has come up in the last few days uh the survivors network for those

00:06abused by priests has called for the next pope to have no history of covering up sexual abuse

00:12and to also call for a zero tolerance policy is there any cardinal who fits those parameters in

00:18your view i don't think i could definitively rule anybody out or in uh just having not look closely

00:29at the the those records um but i i think it the the thing that comes to mind was uh during the 2013

00:40election uh one of the u.s cardinals noted um that the new pope has to be free in the sense of like

00:50his decisions are his own um but i but i got the sense in that that he it was also a reference to

00:57past decisions like that that that would be something that would impede his governance

01:03greatly and and and be devastating to the the credibility of of the church and i mean we've

01:12lived with um that incredible fallout and the incredible harm that was done and um that has

01:20touched the church at the highest levels of its governance and and rightly so

01:24earlier in this conversation i think i mentioned the betting markets i checked polymarket before we

01:31started which was not a factor the last time there was a conclave but pietro perolin is at 30 percent

01:39in the american betting markets uh luis antonio tagle toggle the um filipino cardinal he's at uh 24

01:46percent and matteo zupi i think one of those italian contenders is at 10 and no new pope in 2025 had less

01:55than one percent but nonetheless still had some betting money it's a little wild to talk about

02:00betting markets when we talk about you know something as centuries old as the process for

02:06choosing a new pope but don what do you make of the fact that the betting markets are weighing in and

02:11and what do you make of those odds i i mean people are fascinated by by the catholic church as an

02:17institution it's like americans in the the the british royal family in some ways uh and and it

02:25and and the pope is such a visible i mean figurehead in the best sense of of a global religious tradition

02:33uh so i mean human nature being what it is yeah people wonder people speculate and those are those

02:39are interesting names i mean that two of them are italians and like that hasn't happened in over

02:46for well over 40 years uh paralyne was brought into the vatican early uh he's a diplomat uh was a a

02:54favorite of pope francis he's only 70 years old uh and uh really kind of oversaw a restoration of the

03:04vatican's vatican's diplomatic mojo if you will that they they they became more of an emphasis again

03:11and uh engage in some you know pretty dicey and ambitious projects like the the agreement with china

03:17and uh um bridging a little bit of a thaw between the u.s and cuba during the the later obama years so

03:25that um so he's he's and he's been in the vatican for all of francis's tenure so that

03:33again a diplomat could be a way forward uh mateo zupi uh one piece i read i mean he's he's a diocesan

03:42archbishop but one piece i read on him was that he has written favorably of both outreach to the lgbtq

03:50community and the latin mass and the the argument being that he could you know be some kind of bridge

03:56figure who kind of holds all of the complexity of this you know vast tradition in himself and

04:03that's ultimately the pope's job is to be a ministry of unity that you know every bishop

04:09on the planet could say i'm in communion with the bishop of rome and therefore i'm a catholic bishop

04:13like that is the job and the pope then carrying the catholic tradition into each moment in history

04:21and uh kind of uh kind of mediating that encounter that's an interesting perspective i have one final

04:30question for you we've used the word conclave lowercase c but of course conclave uppercase c was

04:36an academy award-winning film for folks who have seen the movie may not have grown up in the catholic

04:42faith and are now following the headlines how much of that movie is accurate and will be unfolding in

04:49the coming days and or how careful should people be and if they watch it tonight and should they not

04:55assume that what they watched on screen is what's going to happen in in rome soon um definitely some

05:02oversimplifications and maybe some amping up of the palace intrigue uh i enjoyed the movie perfectly

05:08and i see we're both wearing our cardinalatial red today and uh it there were elements of it that

05:16were almost a little chilling as like a future history in terms of um the way they talked about

05:22the recently deceased pope suggested that he was a man with of wisdom who believed in complexity of

05:28issues and it just just you know moved the church forward um but you know are there going to be

05:36rather hard-hitting conversations behind the scenes sure like they they they have a big decision ahead

05:42of them and these are these are real people for better or worse and uh and they they've got they've

05:49got a job to do um yeah was it oversimplified sure but um but a fascinating portrayal i lied that

06:00was my penultimate question my final question is do we know how long the conclave will last is there

06:06a date by which we can expect to for sure have a decision uh that would be another one of those

06:12fools errands uh you had conclaves in the 20th century go from as few as three rounds of balloting

06:20so after every round they burn the ballots in their smoke and uh to like eight or nine i believe in the

06:261958 uh conclave where they really had no idea where to go after pious the 12th it all worked out

06:33um in the 21st century they've lasted about two days four rounds of voting for benedict the 16th

06:39five rounds of voting for francis that would be considered pretty fast and i think a lot of that

06:45is owed to the fact that they do engage in serious discernment and discussion ahead of it um so that

06:52they've got it crystallized in their mind like okay we know what we need to do come holy spirit write the

06:58name down uh and that's that's key

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