Tyler Blanski
“The Young Pope” is unexpectedly different, painting a picture of the Vatican that is at once repulsive and frightening, yet also beautiful, mysterious, and at times even holy.
Hollywood’s brush tends to paint the Vatican in colors dark and foreboding, a lavishly decorated place of simony and secret sexual sins. The papal throne is made to look smug and malevolent, even diabolical. Catholic priests are either buffoons or sex-crazed loonies. The laity are gullible, superstitious, or secretly Protestant. The HBO limited series The Young Pope is unexpectedly different, albeit obliquely. Here we encounter a young conservative pope who is not so easily demonized—or canonized. This is, perhaps, a good thing. The world is watching director Paulo Sorrentino’s drama with horror and delight, and they’re asking questions. Will Catholics have answers?
To Be or Not to Be Offended
There is, of course, the immediate problem of the “adult content.” There’s no excuse for the spectacle and it’s unedifying. Because of it, I cannot honestly recommend the show to anyone. But when Catholic journals praise Breaking Bad for its enthralling portrayal of the addictive and destructive nature of sin, however graphic, one wonders by what principle The Young Pope could be discarded—except, perhaps, for the fact that the subject matter hits closer to home. If Breaking Bad shows us the wages of sin, The Young Pope imperfectly points us to sin’s remedy: Before Jesus ascended into heaven he left behind his Catholic Church to be a city on a hill and a hospital for sinners. “The Confessional is our operating room,” says Pope Pius XIII (Jude Law). “We’re not afraid of sin and scandal, the way surgeons are not afraid of blood.”
At times, the gut instinct is to take offense. But, as G.K. Chesterton said, “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.” The irreverent opening theme version of Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower” traces a comet as it knocks halos off saints and eventually pummels an old pontiff. » Read More
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2025/04/christians-watch-young-pope-tyler-blanski.html