Vatican watchers weren’t the one ones consulting the movie Conclave earlier than the pivotal election of a new pope.
The new pontiff himself – Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who took the identify Leo XIV – watched the 2024 movie dramatizing the Vatican’s choice course of forward of the sequestration of cardinals that selected him to lead the Catholic church, in accordance to his older brother.
John Prevost, the center of three Prevost brothers – Robert, now the primary American pope, is the youngest – advised NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV of their native Chicago that he spoke along with his youthful brother a day earlier than the conclave started.
“I said: ‘Are you ready for this? Did you watch the movie Conclave, so you know how to behave?’ And he had just finished watching the movie,” Prevost laughed. “So he knew how to behave.”
The elder Prevost added: “I wanted to take his mind off of it [the real conclave], you know, laugh about something because this is now an awesome responsibility.”
The drama-thriller directed by Edward Berger, based mostly on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris, dramatized the choice technique of a brand new pope following the demise of a broadly widespread, reasonable one. The fictional movie, although based on real details, processes and dynamics throughout the insular Vatican, depicts political intrigue, gossip and rivalries throughout the church, finally culminating within the election of a shock outsider candidate.
In actual life, the brand new Leo XIV was on few shortlists for pope, provided that no American had ever been chosen to lead the Catholic church, and the truth that he was named cardinal solely two years in the past. According to his brother, Prevost himself doubted his possibilities.
“He didn’t think so,” John Prevost mentioned. “I didn’t believe it and Rob didn’t believe it – I should say Pope Leo didn’t believe it at all, because there’s not going to be an American pope was the attitude.”
John Prevost did suppose his brother was in severe competition, nevertheless. “What I was reading and what I was hearing was that there were three outstanding candidates that were in first, second and third place,” he mentioned, “the cardinal from the Philippines, the [Vatican] secretary of state, and him [Robert].”
After a comparatively brief conclave – a day and 4 rounds of voting that ended on Thursday night, native time – Pope Leo XIV assumed the position vacated by Pope Francis, who died aged 88 final month after an extended interval of unwell well being, with an tackle in Spanish and Italian to the numerous gathered in St Peter’s Square. (The new pope has spent most of his ecclesiastical career in Peru, and is a naturalized citizen of the South American nation.) Now tasked with shepherding the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics by way of more and more turbulent instances, he’ll in all probability have little time for motion pictures. But his brother offered some perception on how he likes to unwind from severe duties.
“First we do Wordle, because this is a regular thing, OK,” John Prevost mentioned. “We do Words with Friends. It’s something to keep his mind off life in the real world.”
Prevost additionally shared his household’s response to the information that his brother had turn out to be the 267th pope in historical past, and the primary pontiff from the US. “It’s totally unreal, it’s totally surreal,” he mentioned. “It’s a tremendous thing to take in, but it’s something to be very proud of.”
