Thinking about "Conclave" and "news" about the conclave

When journalists cover "Catholics," who are they talking about? Who do they reach?

Be honest: How many of you have watched or rewatched the movie “Conclave” during the past month or two — roughly starting with the health crisis that eventually ended the Pope Francis papacy?

I watched it in March, during a long, long, long flight home from New Zealand, which is a good time to read and watch several movies — especially if you lack the ability to sleep on airplanes (tmatt raises his hand).

The movie was exactly what I expected, rather like reading a Washington Post report about American politics or listening to National Public Radio.

The good guys were all complex, brilliant, progressives and “reformers” (since ancient Catholic doctrines should be reformed) and the bad guys were corrupt, simplistic conservatives or damaged men from the Global South (hint, hint). It was easy to play “pin the real name” on the cardinals (For a rather different look at a conclave, check out this movie about the life of St. John Paul II. At one strategic moment you may be tempted to say, “As you wish.”)

Here are my questions about the 2024 “Conclave” movie: Who was this movie crafted (a) to please, (b) to inform, (c) to influence and maybe even (d) to anger? In other words, who do you think will be tempted to see the current conclave through the lens of the recent Hollywood passion play?

If you want to see a conservative Catholic media take on that flick, see this feature — “‘Conclave’ fact vs. fiction: What does the hit movie get right and wrong?” — from the Catholic News Agency. I have also embedded YouTube reviews from priests in this post. Feel free to leave links to more reviews in the comments pages!

With that overture, let me get to my serious question, from the Rational Sheep point of view.

When mainstream media professionals — in newsrooms or entertainment studios — talk about what “Catholics” think and belief, who are they actually talking about?

Yes, there is a connection to my earlier questions about the target audience for the “Conclave” movie. Obviously, Catholics in various “Catholic” tribes will respond to that movie in different ways (as the producers intended).

This raises another question: What forms of media are, at this moment, influencing how various types of “Catholics” think about the real conclave in Rome?

With that in mind, let me suggest that it will be helpful (yes, believe it or not) to think about politics.

During election years, journalists constantly talk about how “Catholic voters” will respond to the issues and candidates in ballot boxes. The assumption is that there is such a thing as a singular, generic, “Catholic voter.”

Several times, during the 20-year history of the GetReligion.org project, I shared — and tweaked — a “Catholic voter” typology that I developed after conversations with a veteran Catholic priest, based near the White House. He argued that there were, at the very least, four kinds of “Catholic voters.”

Here is a 2020 version of that:

* Ex-Catholics. While most ex-Catholics are solid for the Democrats, the large percentage that has left to join conservative Protestant churches (perhaps even many Latinos) lean to GOP.

* Cultural Catholics who may go to church a few times a year. This may be an undecided voter ... depending on what is happening with the economy, foreign policy, etc. Leans to Democrats.

* Sunday-morning American Catholics. These voters are regulars in the pews and may even fill leadership roles in their parishes. …

* The “sweats the details” Catholic who goes to Confession, is active in the full sacramental life of the parish and almost always backs the Vatican, when it comes to matters of faith and practice. This is where the GOP has made its big gains in recent decades, but this is a very, very small slice of the American Catholic pie.

I would argue that “Sunday-morning American Catholics” are the voters journalists think they are writing about, most of the time. But the big numbers are found in the “ex-Catholics” and “cultural Catholics” niches.

But since we are talking about how “Catholics” are thinking about a real conclave, we are probably talking about those final two groups, as the Catholics who are most active in the life of local parishes.

Once again, the “Sunday-morning American Catholics” are especially important. That’s the big flock in pews. I mean, how many American Catholics, these days, go to Confession on a regular basis or, at the very least, during each major penitential season?

Thus, let me revamp that “Catholic voter” typology for a new purpose.

Where are “ex-Catholics” getting their news and input about the real conclave? How about the “cultural Catholics”?

Are they tuned into Hollywood, late-night talk show hosts, cable-TV news or the major news networks? The big news channels, based on my experience as a 70-something journalist, tend to see papal elections as a cross between a U.S. presidential election and the Olympics. Are marginal Catholics plugged in, at all, to Catholic social media and alternative publications?

Obviously, there are doctrinal divisions among “Sunday-morning American Catholics” and maybe even “sweats the details” Catholics. There are doctrinal progressives who are very active in certain parishes and zip codes (Yo, Chicago).

My assumption is that these Catholic tribes are getting most of their content from different streams of independent Catholic media (click here and then here). It’s possible that Catholic progressives remain tuned into Hollywood and elite, blue-ZIP code media, where their doctrinal views may align well with mass-media doctrines on moral and cultural issues.

Consider, if you will, what most reviewers cited (and I agree with this take) as the thesis statement of the “Conclave” movie, when the brilliant, complex (hint, hint) dean of the College of Cardinals, in a sermon, proclaims:

“Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he cried out in his agony at the ninth hour on the cross. Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore, no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts. And let him grant us a Pope who sins and asks for forgiveness and who carries on.”

And some of the people said, “Amen.”

Who was the target audience for this sermon?