A Protestant Lesbian's Guide to Conclave

If you grew up Protestant like me, and are about to watch Conclave because JD Vance killed the Pope, maybe it would be helpful for me to guide you, homosexually, through the process.

I woke up today to the news that JD Vance killed the Pope. Now, I don't really know much about Catholicism. I grew up Protestant — Southern Baptist, to be exact — but I do have some familiarity with the Catholic Church. For one example, the Archdiocese of Atlanta made me and my sister "a pair of bastards," according to my late Granny, because my dad got his marriage to my mom and my first stepmom annulled to marry his current wife, Catholically.

Everything I knew about annulments prior to that came from watching Days of Our Lives as a child, and I'm not sure how theologically sound that show was; Dr. Marlena Evans did get possessed by literal Satan at one point. Her eyes turned yellow like a cat when the Prince of Darkness took over; and sometimes she levitated off the bed; and her former lover, John Black, was a priest who wanted to "make back-breaking love" to her to cure the demonic takeover, but they weren't allowed to do sex anymore. Honestly, that's probably the same in the Protestant tradition. You're probably not allowed to fuck the devil, regardless of what you believe about the Eucharist.

The annulment questionnaire the Archdiocese sent asked such things as: Was there a premarital pregnancy? (LOL, yes, me.) Was there pressure on the couple to marry when they did? (LOL, yes, me, applying pressure to my mother's bladder from inside her uterus, where I existed, premaritally.) Were you yourself in favor of them marrying when they did? (Girl, I was simply a grape-sized clump of cells with eyeballs at that time, trying to grow honeydew-sized and get born so I could play Atari games.) That part was whatever. I've already paid for the therapy on it. The best part of the annulment questionnaire was how messy it was. First of all, it included questions so personal that even your doctor would feel sheepish asking them to you. And, second of all, after most of the questions, it asked for even more gossip: "And when did you hear this?"

Like: Was there infidelity? Was there drama with the in-laws? Did they use contraception? Were either of them weirdos? Bitch, say more!

I confess I was a real cunt when I was answering those questions, but only because the whole thing ratcheted up my homosexuality to about a billion. It was like I was personally participating in a pregame ritual for Real Housewives or Drag Race or something. Literally: "In your opinion, did either party suffer from emotional problems?" If I could have been listening to Cowboy Carter while I was filling out that form, my gayness would have become so overpowered, my mere presence, going forward, would have caused straight people to incinerate from the inside out, just a pile of heterosexual dust left behind on the ground. All the same to me, Plain Jane, spaghetti.

Anyway, the point is that watching Conclave reminded me how gay that entire annulment experience was, because Conclave was also — well, remember when we found out Pope Francis used the word frociaggine as affectionate slang? Like if I walked up to my friends on the street and was all, "What's up, dykes?" they'd be like "That's us!" You know what I mean? So, I was thinking, if you grew up Protestant like me, and are about to watch Conclave because JD Vance killed the Pope, maybe it would be helpful for me to guide you, homosexually, through the process.

Conclave is the story of how Cardinal Ralph Fiennes does various holy machinations to elect a new Pope after the old Pope dies. It's not something he's particularly excited to do because the old Pope was his best friend, and also his tormenter. The old Pope told Cardinal Ralph Fiennes that he was, at best, a middle-manager, so Cardinal Ralph Fiennes spends a not-insignificant amount of time staring at himself in the harsh light of Conclave Hotel's bathroom mumbling, "You're a middle-manager, Ralph. Manage. Middle-manager. Manage. Manage from the middle, Ralph. Middle middle middle." He's not opposed to being Pope, himself, but he's been so busy being the old Pope's right-hand-man that he hasn't accumulated much political power for himself.

Once all the Cardinals have arrived at Conclave Hotel, Cardinal Ralph Fiennes gets up in front of everyone, clears his throat, and says, "Two beautiful girls stand before me, but I only have one photo in my hands."

But actually, there's four beautiful girls.

Cardinal Stanley Tucci is for the liberals, meaning he wants to do Catholicism without the racism and the homophobia. Cardinal Sergio Castellitto is for the conservatives, meaning he wants to double down on the racism and the homophobia. Cardinal Lucian Msamati is also for the conservatives, and could be the first African Pope, so he doesn't want to do the racism but he super-duper wants to do the homophobia. An entire extra helping of homophobia, maybe to the point of witch hunts and burning frociaggines alive. TBD. Cardinal Jonathan Lithgow splits the diff between these guys, and shocks them all with how many votes he gets the first time they cast their ballots.

Cardinal Ralph knows everybody and everybody knows Cardinal Ralph — until Cardinal Carlos Diehz arrives. No one's ever even heard of him before he pops up at Conclave Hotel. 'Cause guess why? The old Pope made him a Cardinal en pectore! Which means an UNDERCOVER CARDINAL!

My youngest cousin always used to say: Friends don't make secrets and secrets don't make friends, and that is the general consensus of the other Cardinals about this guy. He doesn't even have one of the beautiful red gowns and capes like the rest of them do. Which I guess does make sense. An undercover Cardinal probably doesn't want to be romping around dressed like Carmen Sandiego. However, based on my assigned seat at the "black sheep table" at my dad's Catholic wedding, I can confirm that a lack of uniformity is not smiled upon in this organization. And so Cardinal Carlos Diehz is aggressively shunned by every person in the Cardinal Cafeteria.

Well, except for the nuns — and this part is very important!

Sister Isabella Rossellini is that bitch. She's in charge of the nuns who are in charge of everything at Conclave Hotel, besides electing the new pope. They cook all the food, clean all the hotel rooms, and even run the security screenings, bagging and tagging all the holy tech. No one can have a phone or iPad or whatever in Conclave Hotel on account of the only person they're supposed to be listening to right now is God. (That's the same as Baptist church camp.)

But Sister Isabella Rossellini's also got some reality TV producer-style shenanigans on her mind. Cardinal Lucian Msamati, for example, got a woman pregnant one time, en pectore. And that lady had the baby and is now a nun, too, and she SHOWS UP AT CONCLAVE HOTEL and makes such a scene. Sister Isabella Rossellini not only clocks this papal-crushing pregnancy situation, she also spies around and finds out that Cardinal Jonathan Lithgow is the one who had the woman brought to Conclave Hotel during the Popelection.

Well, and that compels her to do even more detective work and she discovers that Cardinal Jonathan Lithgow has been paying off all these other Cardinals in various ways for years, just biding his time until the old Pope died. So she Burn Books it. She makes copies of all the ledgers and receipts and binds them up in pretty little presentation pamphlets and hands them out to the Cardinals at dinner.

For two Popetestants, it will be their LAST SUPPER.

Ten minutes on a desktop computer with spotty wifi connection, ten minutes with a copy machine, and she crushes two entire near-Popes under her sensible shoes! She's got a real sly face, and it sorta seems like she could stab any one of these men with a fork at any second, if moved to do so by the Holy Spirit. You see what I'm saying here, right? Very lesbian-coded, just like Regina George the First.

It turns out the old Pope was into dyke drama even more than Sister Isabella Rossellini. He's got a secret stash of information about all his faves crammed into a compartment behind a panel in the headboard of his bed. One by one, the papal candidates fall at the hands of Sister Isabella Rossellini — and also Archbishop Janusz Woźniak, who is to Cardinal Ralph Fiennes as Cousin Greg is to Tom Wambsgans on Succession. (You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Gregs, etc.) Archbishop Janusz Woźniak has a purple cape, which is, I believe, one step lower than the red cape.

I won't spoil the winner of the Popelection for you because it is preposterous in pretty much every way, but the end isn't even the point, really. The point is the pageantry. All of this subterfuge and whispering and whisper-yelling is conducted with such a sense of spectacle. That's what legitimizes it. Everything's the color of blood, everything takes about fifty times longer than it should because of all the choreography, and while no one is wearing crowns or tiaras, there's literal gold and jewels encrusted and stitched all over everything, from the chalices to the capes to the brooches. This is an institution that thinks they’re entitled to know how children feel about the way their parents and step-parents fucked each other, physically and metaphorically.

The best thing a nun ever says in a movie is "Go with God, Crispy." But the second best thing is what Sister Isabella Rossellini says after destroying these men. "Although we sisters are supposed to be invisible, God has nevertheless given us eyes and ears." Sin, even in the most holy places, is subjective. Bitch, say more!