Conclave (2024) and the Only True Delight of the Contemporary Liberal Left

Benítez, the hero-cardinal, hides beneath his robe a superpower capable of changing the world. Photo: reproduction.

The film that moves the liberal left is nothing more than another piece of woke propaganda

The recent death of Pope Francis sparked a flurry of commentary across left-wing media outlets. Among them, the obvious: analysts couldn't contain themselves and, immediately after the pontiff’s passing, began discussing Conclave (2024), a British-American production directed by Edward Berger and starring Ralph Fiennes—yet another sign of how shallow public discourse can be.

The film was nominated for eight Oscars in 2025 and won Best Adapted Screenplay. It also earned awards at the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes. Such recognition only reinforces how distorted these awards have become, serving the dominant bourgeois propaganda machine. Victory goes to those best adapted to the system as it stands. In concrete terms, the film is worth nothing. It's woke propaganda set against the backdrop of the Catholic Church.

Liberal journalists reference the film primarily because of its plot: following the pope’s death, the College of Cardinals convenes to elect his successor. The college dean, Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), leads the process. The main contenders include Cardinals Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci), Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), Joseph Tremblay (John Lithgow), and Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto). Each figure represents a token version of either liberal or conservative ideals—superficial categories designed to appeal to the petty bourgeois sensibilities of the film’s target audience. In this context, it’s as if the already artificial Lula vs. Bolsonaro dichotomy had been transposed onto the Vatican.

Amid the political maneuvering, a mysterious archbishop named Vincent Benitez appears, having arrived straight from Afghanistan, claiming to have been secretly named cardinal by the late pope. Notably, the Eurasian country is mentioned only in passing—just the word "Afghanistan," with no context. We don’t know what he was doing there, when he was there, or why he left. We, the audience, are simply meant to infer a loaded backstory — one that instantly conveys sacrifice and compassion. "He came from Afghanistan." We are to assume, based on hours of biased mass media coverage, that he was a beacon of civilization against "savage Taliban." Throughout the film, tricks like this are employed to build his character.

Benitez’s main rival is Cardinal Tedesco, a rigid, cold conservative, and staunch advocate of repression. He is the perfect villain for a predictable script: harsh enough to be menacing but cartoonish enough not to be taken seriously. Tedesco exists only to create dramatic contrast, making every gesture by Benitez appear revolutionary. But in truth, both characters operate within the same system.

In the end, after much suspense and unnecessary power plays, Benitez is ultimately elected pope and adopts the name “Innocent.” Then comes the final twist: the newly elected pope reveals to Cardinal Thomas that he is biologically female—defying the Church's traditionally exclusionary stance toward women and symbolizing, at last, the Catholic Church's alignment with the U.S. Democratic Party and the neoliberal postmodernity embraced by the filmmakers (yet another symptom of the decay of American cinema).

Following Pope Francis’s death, the film has been treated as a mirror of reality: a sensitive portrait of a Vatican in transition, torn between tradition and modernity. Journalists of the liberal left swear on the Bible that this is the film’s true intent. But is it really? Beneath Conclave’s solemn, reflective surface lies a conservative film in form and deeply reactionary in content. It reaffirms the Church’s power structures under the guise of symbolic inclusion, just enough to satisfy the representational cravings of today’s intellectually hollow wokism. The union of the Catholic Church and the woke priest is enough to bring about near-mystical ecstasy in certain circles. In that sense, Conclave is the perfect cultural product, one that sells tickets through the illusion of seriousness.

At the same time, the film reinforces wokeness as the only possible form of political engagement, even though it is now clear that the woke agenda is a PR construct, sewn together in intelligence agency think tanks and handed over to NGOs that pay handsomely to those willing to sell it. Wokism is merely the prodigal child of Zionism.

The film’s structure also helps expose the ideological trap: it’s framed as a political thriller or “backroom drama”—a series of divided cardinals clashing in round after round of voting, until the unexpected figure of Benitez emerges victorious, simply because that’s the outcome the emotionally manipulated audience has been conditioned to want. It’s a paint-by-numbers script. The direction tries to suggest depth, moral complexity, and introspection. But behind the polished surface is an empty film, one that simulates conflict where none exists. Wokism is its only lifeline. And that alone is enough to consign this movie to the cinematic dustbin of history.

Benitez’s character is designed to be moving. He appears as the gentle outsider, the face of tolerance, the shepherd who lived among the poor. His "love wins over hate" speech becomes decisive after an attack in Rome—one that comes out of nowhere, only to remind us of the evil terrorists roaming the world (who, of course, are Arab—from Palestine to Kabul). The concrete causes of war, the real suffering of peoples, elite interests, the complicity of the Holy Church, the parasitic colonial violence imposed on Afghanistan for two decades, the persecution of political dissent, the ongoing war against freedom of expression, and the misery imposed by neoliberal economics—none of it exists in this movie. Benitez’s humanism is a performance tailor-made for Western liberals clinging to "causes" from their offices on Wall Street or in the City of London.

Superficial Left-Liberal Ideology and the Comfort of Illusion

In the wake of Pope Francis’s death, many liberals look to Conclave as a symbol of hopeful continuity. A pope born a woman, globalized and pacifist? Now that would be a disruptive future. And therein lies the danger. This reception reveals just how much of the left has traded real systemic critique for symbolic gestures of empathy. Diversity has become synonymous with justice. Representation now matters more than material transformation—more than class struggle.

Conclave works as a catharsis. It clears the conscience of the petty-bourgeois viewer by offering a product that seems bold but is entirely harmless. A film designed to keep everything in place. It is not a critique of the Church, but a rebranding in service of a decaying ideology. Its goal is to convince the audience that change can come from within institutions, that inclusion is enough, that peace will emerge from soft dialogue and diplomatic handshakes. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Joe Biden’s ambassador to the UN, is the perfect embodiment of this hypocrisy.

In this kind of story, class struggle is nowhere to be found. And perhaps that’s the only true delight of the contemporary liberal left.