Conclave, by Robert Harris

Earlier this year, when everyone was talking about the movie Conclave, I realized it was based on a book by Robert Harris, a writer whose historical novels I love. This one isn’t historical; it’s quite contemporary — although in a way it feels like it could be historical, because the rites and rituals surrounding a papal conclave are so ancient that it feels like the cardinals at the centre of the story are living in the modern world and in medieval times simultaneously.

Harris always does excellent research, so I am sure he got most of the details of how a papal conclave works right, even though he takes liberties for fiction’s sake and of course the whole thing is so shrouded in secrecy there are details we may never be sure of the accuracy of. What feels so true to me (knowing a lot about religious people though nothing about Catholic cardinals specifically) is how the ambition, the jockeying for power, sits uneasily alongside what for most of these men is a deep a genuine faith. I’m not sure everyone writing about Vatican politics would get that right; I’m not sure if the movie (which I haven’t seen yet) conveys that. But I felt strongly that despite their flaws and the self-serving things some of them do, these men — especially the main character, Cardinal Lomelli — genuinely believe in the Church’s mission and desire to serve God, and are troubled by doubts and driven by faith, just like Christians in much humbler and less powerful positions who also sometimes do bad things in the course of trying to do God’s work.

I made a conscious decision when I first learned of both the book and the movie, to wait awhile to read them. Pope Francis was in poor health at the time, and, knowing he couldn’t last forever, I thought it would be interesting to read the book and watch the film in the period between the pope’s death and the selection of a new pope. While the pope who has just died in Conclave is never named, all the popes leading up to him are historically accurate up to Benedict/Ratzinger, and the dead pope is extremely similar to Francis in many biographical details. So this felt like a timely read in a way that was both sad and appropriate.