The Young Pope: conversation on faith, doubt, and divine irony
a fictional dialogue with Jude Law's character Lenny from HBO's The Young Pope
I’ve been finishing The Young Pope on HBO, which is about “A young cardinal from New York, Lenny Belardo, becomes pope of the Catholic Church when the leading contenders of the Papal conclave fail to win election.”
Starring Jude Law, the series is filled with thought-provoking dialogue and musings that make Law's character one of the most memorable, and even controversial, in many regards.
Anyway, I've crafted this dialogue inspired by some of the things he said in the show. I thought it would be a fun exercise in practicing my fiction writing while also offering some potential insights about God, Catholicism (I grew up Catholic so it makes the show more intriguing for me), organized religion, and our sense of meaning.
Anyway, Lenny is pretentious, arrogant, and a walking contradiction. And these are traits I either struggle with or embrace, depending on who you ask.
There’s no spoilers in this dialogue as it’s a made up conversation only inspired by Lenny’s words.
I’m pushing a survey about my Substack on this post because I’m looking for feedback from my readers. And many pertain to this post so, if you would be so kind, do the survey below!
In a chamber at the timeless Vatican, amidst the Holy See. There, a place that attempts to demonstrate its mystic glow through its stain glass windows. The room served as a time capsule, filled with relics of symbolic holiness, and those very relics were also worn by the young Pope Pius III. This chamber was a living contrast with the every day operations of the outside world.
We both sat, him with the stained glass window at his back, where ethereal light enveloped him, creating an aura that seemed divine. I couldn't help but resent that.
Lenny spoke, his voice with an intentional gentleness that still managed to echo throughout the chamber. “I believe… I believe it’s in the memories of our youth, we find what we are, we find what we became,” his eyes were distant, detached even, as though the scenes of his own memory were unfolding once more. “I recall an afternoon. A rainy afternoon at that. Where I dreamed of running away from that orphanage.” He paused and leaned forward in his chair. “I stood at that front gate. I stood there, contemplating a decision set in front of me—to walk through that gate or stay. And it was in that moment—I realized—the contradiction I faced, in my potential decision, in both potential choices, I saw both fear and freedom. I realized they are both one in the same.”
He leaned back into his chair, where his distant look now included a smirk of realization. His hands interlocked at his waist. “I was baptized at the gate that day. I turned from that gate to see Sister Mary at the door back to the orphanage. This memory is like a vivid picture for me. And maybe it was a moment with God.”
I was nodding and had intended to acknowledge some gesture of understanding. “And yet, here we are,” I said. My tone was almost unconsciously sarcastic in response. I sensed the Pope felt the same. “Here we are chasing those shadows, those shadows of memories, those pictures that have likely lost color, where we’ve gone back to recolor, and its in the recoloring that I continually find doubt. What if doubt is in the contradiction?”
Lenny nodded. He remained leaned back in his chair. His hands interlocked. His tone went from a quite softness to more stern arrogance. “Doubt is a companion on the journey to faith, not its adversary. It’s a release, not an adversary. I have seen the darkest corners of humanity—war, hunger, despair. And in those moments, I’ve questioned God myself. But I recognized that God does not always answer. He puts it on you to trust in your doubt. To trust your faith. To then become the voice of God. This is where we come closer to understanding the divine. God is not in the turmoil; He is in the peace. God is peace. And peace is God.”
He then stood up from his chair and placed his hands behind his back. He faced out of the window, looking over the court of the Vatican. “But so many seek peace. They seek some forgiveness. What makes us think we deserve forgiveness? It’s blasphemous.” He hesitated. He raised his hand pointing a finger up towards the ceiling. “You see, it’s the people who ask for forgiveness, they believe they deserve it, and it’s those who think that they deserve it that are only part time believers. They never knew peace, so they never knew God, nor do they deserve it.”
“Why don’t they deserve it?” I interjected.
Lenny turned his head from the window. The smirk had remained. “Because they do not know the relationship between fear and freedom. They’ve never been baptized. You must first believe in yourself. How can you ask for forgiveness if you do not comprehend or know who or what is being forgiven?”
“Perhaps,” I said. I provided my own intentional pause. This pause led the Pope to turn from the window and return to his chair. I had provided my own distant stare towards him. “Maybe our paths to understanding are not so different after all. In our questioning, in our doubts, we seek the same thing—a line that opens, a smile or a nod from the divine.”
“Perhaps,” Lenny smiled, a gesture that I remain uncertain of in its intent. “When we are baptized, in some metaphorical sense of it, of course. When I was a boy at that gate, I had a choice to walk through or return. I returned to the church with a renewed understanding of God. But you see, the church, like any human institution, is flawed—of course. But our faith, true faith, transcends the walls of any church, even here, at The Holy See. But its in this structure that one can show others how to build a true relationship with God. To invite—“ he stopped himself, his distant stare returning. His eyes had closed with his deep breath taken. “No, not to invite, to manipulate us into earning our relationship, to pressure us into no longer being part time believers that are underserving of forgiveness.”
My gaze drifted, the light through the stain glass was helping to distract me from my frustration, the frustration of a religious leader so clearly consumed by his own self-image, and yet he was aware that he was consumed. And this was seemingly his point! “And what of those who stand outside this structure, those like me, who feel alienated by doctrine yet seek the divine in their own way?”
Lenny leaned forward once again. “My purpose is not to doubt you. My job is to guide this structure, this structure that I am the face of, the structure that Christ himself was once the face of… my job is to create and guide the structure that makes people worthy of peace; that makes people worthy of God.”
His words struck a nerve in me. I had encountered a man that had seemingly felt the same realization that I once had, and yet, saw that as a reason to embrace the structure that I had found to be behind my feelings of loss and despair. “But what of the structure you speak of?” I pressed, “how can it claim to guide us towards peace and God when it, too, is so flawed by us?”
Lenny’s smirk had become a smile, a knowing smile, a smile combined with a glint in his eye that fixated on my own eyes directly. I had realized, this was the first moment that his eyes had directly fixated upon mine. “You are right, so right, the Church, for all its grandeur and sanctity, is a human institution, prone to the same failings as any other. I’ve already admitted this much, here in this very conversation. Yet, it’s this institution, it’s this one. Here. And you happen to be visiting the heart of it, and it’s this heart that strives towards an ideal, an image. One that provides a greater understanding of a connection with the divine. You speak as though you do not strive towards some ideal yourself. It’s not about the perfection of the structure but the direction it points us in. And it’s the Catholic church that has centuries of knowledge and a centuries long relationship with God, behind it, holding it up. Maybe between me and you, this being off the record of course, that I, the driver of this heart, it might be my job to hide the failures of that structure. This is part of the ideal, to uphold the structure, the divine symbol that creates the fanatics for God, to create fanatics that deserve peace.”
Lenny moved his eyes away from me. He quickly stood up and began walking out the door, only to stop and turn back, “I must go now, I must not allow myself to take part in some potential part time believing, that would make me a hypocrite. I must pray now, someone will see you out.”
The door closed.
I’m pushing a survey about my Substack on this post because I’m looking for feedback from my readers. And many pertain to this post so, if you would be so kind, do the survey below!
Anyway, stay curious. Stay multiple.