I have to laugh whenever people claim that a pope is liberal or more openminded. The Catholic church is a white male patriarchy and will stay that way. I have never understood the appeal, and I have always been offended that women are relegated to secondary status as nuns. Granted, I was raised as a white Protestant, so it was a different patriarchal religion, but we didn’t have an infallible pope as our leader, and women are now ordained and in leadership positions. (Southern Baptists and fundamentalists excluded.)
A book set in the Catholic Church and a film based on that movie: we know going in that women aren't likely to figure big. Besides maybe Mary, and for all the hype that's definitely a supporting role.
Cardinal Lawrence's speech in the movie about the danger of certainty is the heart of Conclave. Uncertainty defines true faith. The plot twist isn't about men or women, it's about an individual outside how the church defines and categorizes people, and by extension dogma. Bad things happen when what one believes slips into being what one knows.
Cardinal Benitez literally embodies a mystery that sets him apart from the vast majority of humanity, at least in biological terms. And he works in dangerous parts of the world, in secret, living every day not knowing whether he might be tortured or killed, but carrying on nevertheless.
Uncertainty, doubt, fear, all these spring from how we individually encounter the only absolute truth: at the end of the day, our existence is an absolute mystery from minute to minute until we die and face the biggest mystery of them all. In Conclave, the church can wield faith as a cudgel destroying uncertainty by imposing control and meaning. Or it can embrace the mystery via a Pope who himself physically and in his life's work shows that faith only exists when we acknowledge that pretty much everything is ultimately unknowable.
For me and my kids, the book and movie gave hope that at least in Conclave's universe, the Church embraces the mystery, making space for love and acceptance of all beings.
But yeah, not probably going so far as women priests.
so, I would say that the film does frame intersex people as a mystery, and that that is part of the problem. intersex people aren't a mystery. they're human beings, many of whom have written about and discussed their experiences.
Other human beings aren't mysteries to lead you to some sort of mystical insight. They are just people, and if you want to know what's going on with them, you ask them and listen.
Conclave claims to be about uncertainty and tolerance, but, again, it's really just a hollywood default pulpy genre mystery exercise which (as hollywood usually does) vastly overrepresents white men. It's verbiage is a smokescreen for what it's actually doing, which I find really offputting.
I have to laugh whenever people claim that a pope is liberal or more openminded. The Catholic church is a white male patriarchy and will stay that way. I have never understood the appeal, and I have always been offended that women are relegated to secondary status as nuns. Granted, I was raised as a white Protestant, so it was a different patriarchal religion, but we didn’t have an infallible pope as our leader, and women are now ordained and in leadership positions. (Southern Baptists and fundamentalists excluded.)
The Catholic Church has shown real courage in opposing Trump on immigration. But yeah; it remains extremely patriarchal.
I only agree with the Catholics on immigration and abolishing the death penalty, and the Berrigan brothers’ antiwar and anti-nuclear activism.
A book set in the Catholic Church and a film based on that movie: we know going in that women aren't likely to figure big. Besides maybe Mary, and for all the hype that's definitely a supporting role.
Cardinal Lawrence's speech in the movie about the danger of certainty is the heart of Conclave. Uncertainty defines true faith. The plot twist isn't about men or women, it's about an individual outside how the church defines and categorizes people, and by extension dogma. Bad things happen when what one believes slips into being what one knows.
Cardinal Benitez literally embodies a mystery that sets him apart from the vast majority of humanity, at least in biological terms. And he works in dangerous parts of the world, in secret, living every day not knowing whether he might be tortured or killed, but carrying on nevertheless.
Uncertainty, doubt, fear, all these spring from how we individually encounter the only absolute truth: at the end of the day, our existence is an absolute mystery from minute to minute until we die and face the biggest mystery of them all. In Conclave, the church can wield faith as a cudgel destroying uncertainty by imposing control and meaning. Or it can embrace the mystery via a Pope who himself physically and in his life's work shows that faith only exists when we acknowledge that pretty much everything is ultimately unknowable.
For me and my kids, the book and movie gave hope that at least in Conclave's universe, the Church embraces the mystery, making space for love and acceptance of all beings.
But yeah, not probably going so far as women priests.
so, I would say that the film does frame intersex people as a mystery, and that that is part of the problem. intersex people aren't a mystery. they're human beings, many of whom have written about and discussed their experiences.
Other human beings aren't mysteries to lead you to some sort of mystical insight. They are just people, and if you want to know what's going on with them, you ask them and listen.
Conclave claims to be about uncertainty and tolerance, but, again, it's really just a hollywood default pulpy genre mystery exercise which (as hollywood usually does) vastly overrepresents white men. It's verbiage is a smokescreen for what it's actually doing, which I find really offputting.