# Conclave (film)

Conclave is a 2024 political thriller film about Cardinal Lawrence, who is tasked with leading one of the world's most secretive and ancient events, selecting a new Pope, and he finds himself at the center of a conspiracy that could shake the very foundation of the Catholic Church.
    Directed by Edward Berger. Written by Peter Straughan, based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris.

## Cardinal Thomas Lawrence

* Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts. And let him grant us a Pope who sins and asks for forgiveness and who carries on.
* Five times I cast my vote for you, Aldo. But I was wrong. You lack the courage to be Pope.

## Cardinal Aldo Bellini

* Is this what we're reduced to? To vote for the least worst option?

## Sister Agnes

* Although we sisters are supposed to be invisible, God has nevertheless given us eyes and ears.

## Cardinal Vincent Benitez

* The church is not the past. It is what we do next.
* I am what God made me.
* I think again of your sermon. I know what it is to exist... between the world's certainties.

## Dialogue

    O'Malley: Well, Eminence, I'd say this is a pretty fair vision of hell.
    Lawrence: Well, don't be blasphemous, Ray. Hell arrives tomorrow when we bring in the Cardinals.
    Bellini: If we liberals are not united, Tedesco will become Pope. You have no idea how bad it became, Thomas. The way he and his circle attacked the Holy Father towards the end - the smears, the leaks to the press - it was savage. He fought him every single day of his pontificate, and now that he's dead, he wants to destroy his life's work. If Tedesco becomes Pope, he will undo sixty years of progress.
    Lawrence: You talk as if you are the only alternative, but Adeyemi has the wind behind him.
    Bellini: Adeyemi? Adeyemi, the man who believes that homosexuals should be sent to prison in this world and Hell in the next? Adeyemi's not the answer to anything, and you know it. If you want to defeat...
    Lawrence: Defeat? This is a conclave, Aldo. It's not a war.
    Bellini: It is a war. And you have to commit to a side.
    Lawrence: The other night, you were kind enough to say that you had voted for me. Now, I don't know if you've continued to do so, but if you have, then I must repeat my plead to you to stop.
    Benitez: Why?
    Lawrence: Well, firstly, I lack the spiritual depth to be Pope. Secondly, I couldn't possibly win. A long, drawn-out Conclave would be seen by the media as proof that the Church is in crisis.
    Benitez: You have come to ask me to vote for Cardinal Tremblay?
    Lawrence: Yes, I have, and to urge your supporters to do the same.
    Benitez: Cardinal Tremblay already spoke to me about this.
    Lawrence: Oh, well, I'm sure he has.
    Benitez: You want me to vote for a man you see as ambitious?
    Lawrence: I do not want to see Tedesco as Pope. He would take your church back to... to an earlier era.
    Benitez: I'm sorry, but I cannot vote for a man unless I deem him the most worthy to be Pope. And for me, that is not Tremblay. It's you.
    Lawrence: [yelling] I don't want your vote!
    Benitez: Nevertheless... you have it.
    Joshua Adeyemi: If this is about the incident downstairs, I have no desire to talk about it. I am the victim of a disgraceful plot to ruin my reputation. Someone brought that woman here and staged this melodrama. She'd never left Nigeria before, and suddenly she's here in the Casa Santa Marta.
    Thomas Lawrence: With respect, Joshua, how she came here is secondary to the issue of your relationship with her.
    Joshua Adeyemi: I have no relationship to her! I hadn't set eyes on her in thirty years until she turned up outside my room last night! It was a lapse, Dean. A lapse. "Let God grant us a Pope who sins and asks forgiveness and carries on." Your words.
    Thomas Lawrence: And the child?
    Joshua Adeyemi: The child? The child was raised in a Christian household. And to this day, he has no idea who his father is, if, indeed, it is me. That is the child. We were very young.
    Thomas Lawrence: No, no, no, Joshua. She was very young. She was nineteen years old. You were thirty.
    Joshua Adeyemi: Thomas. Thomas, listen to me. Please. I sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit this morning; I swear it. I am ready to take this burden. Does a single, single mistake thirty years ago disqualify me? Thomas, please, I was a different man. Please, I beg you, do not use this to ruin me.
    Thomas Lawrence: Joshua, that thought's not worthy of you. Shanumi will say nothing to protect her son. And I am bound by the vows of the confessional.
    Joshua Adeyemi: So, I still have hope?
    Thomas Lawrence: No. There is no hope. After such a public scene, there will be rumours, and you know what the Curia is like. Nothing terrifies our colleagues more than the thought of yet more sexual scandals. I am more sorry than I can say. You will never be Pope. You must begin again. But you are a good man. I know you to be a good man, and you will find a way to atone.
    Bellini: I could never become Pope on those circumstances. A stolen document, the smearing of a brother cardinal. I'd be the Richard Nixon of Popes.
    Lawrence: Then stay clear of this; leave it to me. I'm willing to handle the consequences.
    Bellini: You know who's gonna benefit most from this? Tedesco. The whole basis of his candidacy is that the Holy Father led the church to disaster by his attempts at reform. If you reveal this report, it isn't Tremblay's reputation that's going to suffer; it's the Church's. Accusing the Curia of institutional corruption...
    Lawrence: I thought we were here to serve God, not the Curia.
    Bellini: Oh, don't be naive!
    Tremblay: You should be careful, Thomas. Your own ambition has not gone unnoticed. This might be seen as a tactic to blacken the name of a rival.
    Lawrence: Well that's a despicable accusation.
    Tremblay: Is it? I wonder, if you really are so reluctant to have the chalice passed to you. I shall pretend this conversation never took place. [walks away]
    Lawrence: [agitated] But it HAS taken place!
    Tremblay: You are responsible for this, I believe.
    Lawrence:: No, Eminence. You are.
    Tremblay: This report is entirely mendacious. It would never have seen the light of day if you had not broken into the Holy Father's to remove it!
    Lawrence: If the report is mendacious, then why did the Holy Father in his last official act as Pope ask you to resign?
    Tremblay: He did no such thing. As Monsignor Morales, who was at the meeting...
    Lawrence: And yet Archbishop Wozniak insists the Holy Father...
    Tremblay: The Holy Father, may his name be numbered among the high priests, was a sick man toward the end of his life, as those of us who saw him regularly can attest.

## Cast

* Ralph Fiennes - Cardinal Thomas Lawrence
* Stanley Tucci - Cardinal Aldo Bellini
* John Lithgow - Cardinal Joseph Tremblay
* Sergio Castellitto - Cardinal Goffredo Tedesco
* Isabella Rossellini - Sister Agnes
* Lucian Msamati - Cardinal Joshua Adeyemi
* Carlos Diehz - Cardinal Vincent Benitez
* Brían F. O'Byrne - Monsignor Raymond O'Malley
* Jacek Koman - Archbishop Janusz Woźniak
* Merab Ninidze - Cardinal Sabbadin
* Thomas Loibl - Archbishop Mandorff
* Loris Loddi - Cardinal Villanueva
* Balkissa Maiga - Sister Shanumi

## External links

* Conclave (film) quotes at the Internet Movie Database
* Conclave (film) at Rotten Tomatoes