Habemus Papem ['We Have a Pope']

Today my wife woke me up with a question – what happens when a Pope resigns?  Then she told me about Benedict XVI’s resignation.  This news immediately reminded me of a movie that I saw about six months ago.  While driving home from work one day, I was listening to NPR.  What I heard was fascinating.  They were talking about this Italian comedy called Habemus Papem.  For those who don’t watch such things, every time a Pope dies the words “Habemus Papem” is Latin for “We have a Pope.”  How could there be a comedy about the Pope without seeming too sacrilegious?  I’m not a practicing Catholic; I don’t get offended by people poking fun at religious institutions, so I felt the need to check out this movie if it ever came out one Pay per View.  The concept sounded so off-the-wall it appealed to my sense of the absurd.  About two months after I heard about the movie on NPR, I got my wish.

The movie starts with footage from Pope John Paul’s funeral.  The College of Cardinals gather in Rome and file into the Sistine Chapel to begin the process of electing a new Pope.  I’ve never been in the Sistine Chapel, but the people who made the set built it like I would imagine how it would look.  As the Cardinals cast their ballots, you can read the thoughts of each one of them, and the thoughts are exactly the same - "Not me, Lord, please!"  It’s almost like any kid’s nightmare – the one where he/she doesn’t want to be the one called upon by the teacher because he/she doesn’t know the answer to the question.  And like those schoolchildren, they try to look on each other’s ballots to see what they’ve written.  But unlike Jeremy Irons’ portrayal as the power hungry Pope Alexander in The Borgias, there is no overly ambitious Cardinal who wants to be Pope.  It seems that nobody really wants the job.  I read the following in The Economist:

“Imagine a job in which you manage an organization that employs 1.4 million workers, one that has representative offices in every country on earth. Further suppose that you are expected routinely to meet heads of state and government without ever putting a diplomatic foot wrong, and then write bestsellers in your spare time. Now imagine you are chosen, not just for your abilities, but for your goodness. Such is the daunting reality of being the pope in the 21st century…”

Apparently, this was on the minds of the Cardinals as they were casting their ballots.  They’d seen what their late Pontiff did [presumably John Paul II – a hard act to follow], and they don’t think they can measure up to the job.  Predictably, the Cardinals cast one ballot after another, but they can’t elect a Pope.  Eventually they settle on a compromise candidate, Cardinal Melville.  Melville is a mild-mannered, sensitive Cardinal, but from where we don’t know [the movie never says where he’s from – France maybe?].  Once Cardinal Melville is elected Pope, the first question he is asked [as are all Popes-elect] is “Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?" Melville is uncertain, but reluctantly he says yes.  What we don’t get is what the new Pope wished to be called.  Poor Melville is full of self-doubt.  He doesn’t have a crisis in faith, more like he has a crisis in confidence.  He knows God has called him – he just doesn’t know if he’s ready to answer the call.  He doesn’t know if he’s up to the task entrusted to him by God.  As the Cardinal Protodeacon announces Habemus Papem to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square, one suddenly hears lots of screaming.  Who’s doing the screaming?  The new Pope is screaming.  He’s having a full-blown panic attack. He is so gripped with fear that he can’t get out of his chair to show himself to those gathered in St. Peter’s Square.  So before the Cardinal Protodeacon could announce the new identify who was elected and what the new Pope’s name is, he withdraws from the balcony, leaving the gathered faithful very confused. 

Nobody outside the walls of the Sistine Chapel knows the identity of the new Pope.  Since the new Pope hasn’t been identified to the public, the Conclave was officially still in session.  None of the Cardinals could leave the Sistine Chapel.  They couldn’t communicate with the world outside the walls of the Sistine Chapel – no cell phones, no newspapers, no faxes – nothing.  The press spokesman has to bob and weave with reporters to keep the truth from getting out.  Eventually the Curia calls in a shrink [who confesses to be an atheist], who is instructed to “cure” the new Pope.  There’s a catch – the shrink can’t ask the Pope questions about sex, his mother, dreams, or fantasies, and his session has to take place while all the Cardinals are watching and listening.  The shrink doesn’t think he can do his job properly, so he recommends his ex-wife, also a shrink.

The new Pope sees his new shrink, and while he does he gives his security detail the slip.  Since nobody knows his identity as the new Pope, he can wander about the streets of Rome in complete anonymity.  While the Pope roams about Rome, the Cardinals [still captive in their Conclave] play an intramural volleyball tournament at the suggestion [or was it instigation?] of the first shrink.  It was quite a hoot to watch all these old guys summon their inner competitive selves to try and win the tournament.  When they aren’t playing volleyball, the Cardinals play card games.  While the Pope is out and about, he attends a weekday Mass – he’s the only one there to hear it.  He rides the busses amongst Rome’s great unwashed.  He enjoys simple everyday pleasures he hadn’t experienced for a long time.  He meets an acting troupe while they are rehearsing Chekov’s The Seagull.  We learn the Pope once had ambitions to become an actor himself.

At the end of the movie, the Pope comes to the conclusion that being Pope is just not for him.  We don’t know what happens afterward, but we assume the Cardinals go back to the task of choosing a new Pope.    And so it goes…

I did some reading about Benedict XVI’s election as Pope.  Apparently while John Paul II was still alive, Cardinal Ratzinger had tried many times to retire as the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [what used to be known as The Inquisition – cue the Monty Python quotes here].  John Paul refused his resignation each time.  I stumbled across something he told some German pilgrims soon after he became Pope.  He told the people assembled that since he was 78 years old, he hoped he would live out the rest of his years in peace and quiet.  He said "at a certain point, I prayed to God, 'Please don't do this to me,'" he recalled. "Evidently, this time he didn't listen to me."  That was exactly as how the Cardinals were depicted in the movie.  So with Benedict XVI’s resignation [the first by a Pope since the fifteen century], the once and future Cardinal Ratzinger will get his wish, just like the fictional Cardinal Melville.  Life imitates art, indeed.