The plotting to find the next Pope

00:00 10:07

Damian Thompson has narrated this article for you to listen to.

The Hollywood adaptation of Conclave, Robert Harris’s thriller about a conspiracy to rig a papal election, won’t be in cinemas until November. But judging by the trailer released last week, its starry cast, crafty plot and spectacular cinematography – jets of smoke scattering cardinals as an explosion shatters the Sistine Chapel – will instantly erase memories of The Two Popes, Netflix’s risible Oscar-nominated fantasy in which Benedict XVI secretly chooses Cardinal Bergoglio as his successor.

Harris’s novel was published in 2016 and diplomatically set some years in the future, since the unnamed Holy Father lying dead of a heart attack in the Casa Santa Marta was clearly meant to be Francis. When he dies, all cardinals under the age of 80 and therefore eligible to vote are locked in the Casa between the rounds of ballots. Their mobiles are confiscated and wifi turned off. But what happens if, during the election, the Dean of the College of Cardinals – an Italian in the novel, but played by Ralph Fiennes as the English Cardinal Lawrence in the movie – watches one of the frontrunners sabotage a rival between ballots? And what if a cardinal created in secret by the old pope turns out not to be what he seems?

Some of the details in the book haven’t worn well. Harris’s deceased Holy Father, humble and principled, is nothing like the vindictive, scandal-haunted Francis of 2024. One of the four leading candidates, the Italian Cardinal Tedesco, is a raging traditionalist with dozens of allies among the electors. No such creature could exist today. Perhaps four cardinal-electors are conservative Latin Mass ritualists, and none stands a chance – unsurprisingly, given that 92 of the 120 eligible cardinals were created by Pope Francis.