(spoiler alert)
My notes to a group chat:
Just watched movie Conclave about choosing a Pope. The bad guys are the conservatives who say that male Catholics shouldn’t go to the bathhouse and have sex with five different guys every night. What the movie calls “liberal” cardinals are heroes. They suggest continuing a program of throwing out everything that was sacred to Catholics in the 19th century. The best of the cardinals, who ultimately wins, is a hermaphrodite. He/she says “I am as God made me” and claims that being a hermaphrodite makes him/her a way better Pope. The movie’s villain is a cardinal who wants Muslims out of Italy, partly due to the potential for jihad, and points out that Muslims don’t tolerate the presence of Christians in Muslim countries.
A friend:
So basically a Netflix show
Here’s someone who might have been pope:
From the same article on Cardinal Robert Sarah:
“By losing its faith, Europe has also lost its reason to be. It is experiencing a lethal decline and is becoming a new civilization, one that is cut off from its Christian roots.”
“All migrants who arrive in Europe are penniless, without work, without dignity,” Sarah reportedly said. “This is what the Church wants? The Church cannot cooperate with this new form of slavery that has become mass migration.”
“If truth no longer exists, if everything is relative, then man becomes a slave to his passions.”
Sarah argued that gender ideology is an affront to God’s creation and cannot fundamentally change whether a person is male or female in “The Day is Now Far Spent.”
Phil, while we are on the subject of bath houses, do you mind my asking about your Monkey Pox? I think the last time we discussed it, you had received the unfortunate news that you were suffering from “long” Monkey Pox. If that is too personal a question, maybe you could tell me how the film dealt with the issue of Monkey Pox – whether according to the film the Vatican was in favor of or against Monkey Pox – or it is just a matter of personal choice, like having indiscriminate sex with multiple anonymous partners in an evening? You know, like some people enjoy spending the evening indiscriminately insulting anonymous people on X while others enjoy spending the evening having indiscriminate sex with anonymous people in a bathhouse?
Thanks for asking, jdc. As is unfortunately so common, the Long Monkeypox has spread to my eyes, thus leading to https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2025/05/19/gender-studies-class-goes-to-the-eye-doctor/
Rumor has it that Philip never leaves his house without wearing his “POXY PAPPA” t-shirt.
@jdc, I watched Conclave for two reasons:
a) it’s been widely praised by the media [1], and
b) I thought I might learn something about the conclave process while being entertained.
But boy, the ending was a huge letdown and cannot get any Woke’er!
Imagine if Hollywood made a film about the Confederacy, and the big twist at the end was all the Black slaves choosing not to be freed and instead welcoming the Ku Klux Klan with open arms. Do you think such a movie would get the rave reviews and praises that Conclave got?
For all its faults, the Catholic Church deserves better than what Conclave portrays. The film comes off as an insult rather than a meaningful critique.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conclave_(film)
Thank god the Greenspuns of the world can absorb these movies so the rest of us can focus on Snow White. Surprised IMDB gave Conclave 5 more stars than Snow White.