Dancing With Mr. D: The Two Popes

First Things, a journal published by The Institute of Religion and Public Life, an educational institute aiming to advance a religiously informed public philosophy has thoroughly exposed the new Netflix movie The Two Popes, featuring Anthony Hopkins as an irritable Pope Benedict and Jonathan Pryce as a beaming Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, today is known as Pope Francis.

The plot has Bergoglio considering retirement but instead is beckoned to see Pope Benedict in the Vatican. The two then spend days becoming friends and Benedict tells Bergoglio he is going to resign and anoint Bergoglio as his successor. Wrong.

None of this happened. As John Waters writes in First Things:

Bergoglio did not in 2012 fly to Italy to meet with Pope Benedict at Castel Gandolfo to ask for permission to retire. The two men did not spend days together getting to know each other. Pope Benedict did not give Cardinal Bergoglio advance knowledge of his intention to resign. He did not tell him that he regarded himself as no longer fit to be pope. He did not reveal that he had decided Bergoglio would be the perfect choice to replace him.

Waters’ paragraph labels the whole movie, an invention from beginning to end. What the film wishes to communicate is the story of how Pope Benedict, an “archconservative” mired in outmoded ways of thinking, can find common ground with a romantic soul, a “man of the people” who represents progressive values and the inclusive future of the Church. All the “conservatives” need to do is yield the field of ideas to the “liberals” and get out of the way. Thus Benedict passes the mitre to Bergoglio because he recognizes his period has ended.

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