So we recorded this episode on the first day of the conclave, and we were just about to upload it when the white smoke went up.

So we'll be back next week to discuss the election of the first American pope.

Until then, please enjoy.

Welcome to the First Things podcast.

In the absence of news from the real-life conclave, we are re-watching the 2024 feature film Conclave and the 2017 HBO series The Young Pope.

One is better than the other.

Then we'll air our hopes and anxieties.

I'm joined by Senior Editor Dan Hitchens and our former colleague, the Editor of Compact Matthew Schmitz.

I'm Senior Editor Julia Yost. Thanks for joining us.

With the attitudes of the last papacy, the church won for itself great expressions of fondness from the masses.

It became popular.

I have no idea what to do with the friendship of the whole wide world.

What I want is absolute love and total devotion to God.

Guys, I am so ready for Pius XIII.

You recall that Jude Law stars in the young pope as Lenny Bellardo, a 47-year-old

New York trad, who becomes the successor of Peter and causes the Vatican Secretary of State to

exclaim, you are young, and yet you have such old ideas. The series embraces the occasional

repulsiveness of Catholic dogma while asserting its beauty and charisma.

Other characters are constantly asking pious, who are you? And it's very unclear. Is he a saint, an orphan with baggage and atheist, just a nasty guy? At one point he says in confession, am I cruel? All I know is everything I do I do for the love of God.

Habamus popum, I say. Contrast, Ray finds speech to open the conclave that elects an intersex

pope who will take the name innocent. He says, certainty is the great enemy of unity. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts.

He obviously has in mind, Matthew chapter 16, verse 18, you are Peter, and upon this sand, I will build my church.

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