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‘The Young Pope’ Season Finale Recap: A Face in the Crowd

By Sean T. Collins

Sean T. Collins

Let’s begin at the end. Literally, at “THE END,” superimposed in all caps over an image of the entire planet just moments after the series’ title occupied the same cosmic space. Paolo Sorrentino’s daring, dizzying, dazzling show finished its first season by literally emblazoning its name across the Earth. That’s a level of ambition that Pope Pius XIII himself would love.

But it turns out that the man once known as Lenny Belardo loves more than just outsized dreams of power – and more than just himself, too, as he makes clear during a dream (or is it a vision?) involving a whole squad of dead popes. “In the end,” says one ghostly pontiff, “more than in God, it is necessary to believe in yourself, Lenny.” Our man’s mouth hangs open in bafflement for a very long time before he finally manages a skeptical reply: “Oh. Have you got something … a little better?”

No, what Pius loves is hard to describe, but if we had to sum it up in a word, it’d be contradictions. Not compromises – even the more benign pontiff we see in this finale has little use for those. But he’s slowly turning his face to the world, first with the schoolchildren to whom he gives an abortive tour of the Vatican museums, and then (after passing on the opportunity to bless the staff of a rest-stop restaurant) with an enormous Venice crowd for his first public homily. As he looks upon all and allows all to look back for the first time, his message goes big. He’d rather encompass opposites rather than declare one side off limits.

“God is a line that opens,” he says, quoting the saintly young healer Blessed Juana. But no one then or now seems to understand what it means: “Are we dead or are we alive? Are we good or are we bad? Do we still have time or has it run out? Are we lost or are we found? Are we men or are we women?” “It doesn’t matter,” Juana replied. When the children finally ask “Who is God?”, she told them, “God smiles.”

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“And only then did everyone understand,” the Pope concludes. At that point, he smiles, sincerely, ecstatically. He encourages everyone else to do the same. That’s when his dream finally comes true: Gazing at the audience through a telescope, he sees his parents. (Or is it a vision, like the Virgin he sees in the clouds before he loses consciousness?) Staggering from chest pain, he manages to conclude: “One day I will die, and I will finally be able to embrace you all.” In a way, of course, he already has.

To the show’s great credit, it only dulls the sharp edges of Pius’ beliefs and behavior so much. Yes, the speech was beautiful. Yes, in the previous episode he tearfully told his personal staff “I love you all” after treating them coldly, if not cruelly, for most of the season. Yes, he gives his mild-mannered informant Don Tomasso the cardinalship he so desperately desired, resuming their late-night rooftop discussions even though he’s no longer using him to spy on his subjects. Yes, he hires Gutierrez as personal secretary even though he’s gay. It’s not just the mere fact of his orientation the Pope is willing to accept; it’s his adamant opposition to the purge policy overall, whether or not he himself is made an exception.

But even if the purge is possibly about to end, The Young Pope is not concocting some alternate future in which Catholicism suddenly accepts homosexuality. In the same episode, our handsome young antihero crows about forcing the Italian prime minister to postpone legislation accepting same-sex civil unions indefinitely. Nor is the Vatican suddenly cooperating with secular authorities regarding abusive clergy. Kurtwell is banished to Alaska, not sent to prison; Sister Antonia is struck down by God Himself instead of exposed and prosecuted. All of the Church’s retrograde teachings on abortion, birth control, marriage, divorce, women in the priesthood, celibacy and so on are presumably left intact. In other words, that dream homily from the pilot does not come true. Sorry, folks: We have still forgotten to masturbate.

And that’s a good thing. A pat conversion of Pius XIII the dashing fundamentalist dictator into Pope Lenny the Kinder Gentler Catholic would be a lie; it would say, falsely, that only art about people who reflect our values can itself reflect our values, or that only art about empathetic people can have an empathetic message. Better to grapple with contradictions and flaws, with the hard-to-swallow and the tough-to-bear. Look at the miracles he’s said to have performed: He saved a sick woman’s life and helped an infertile couple have a child. He struck a criminal dead. (His friend and rival Voiello reflects this in miniature: He’s in love with Sister Mary and he adores his disabled young friend Girolamo. Still, both he and the show are keeping the fate of rogue prophet Tonino Pettola under wraps anyway.) The Pope is still the same smug bastard he started as. He could well be crazy. But in his presence, characters feel God’s presence. Couldn’t he be a madman and a mystic, a sociopath and a saint all rolled into one?

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As the Holy Father himself puts it, “Goodness, unless it’s combined with imagination, runs the risk of being mere exhibitionism.” The Young Pope trusts our imagination – our ability to handle its narrative leaps, cinematic risks and characters with views far different from our own – and has faith that we’ll see the goodness all the clearer for it. That’s where its greatness lies.

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What The Young Pope Preached About Love

The first season of HBO’s Vatican dramedy portrayed a journey from amplifying suffering to easing it.

In the final moments of The Young Pope ’s first season, the elusive Pope Pius XIII finally showed his face to the world for a sermon in Venice that addressed one question: “Who is God?”

This is a central question of religion, but it is not the central question of The Young Pope . Over 10 episodes, Paolo Sorrentino’s daring and hypnotic HBO series instead asked: Who are people? Why is anyone the way they are? Or more specifically in this show, and perhaps more urgently in this era: What drives someone who acts erratically and cruelly in a position of power? Why would someone use their charisma and influence to exclude and degrade? Are the most inscrutable people born or are they made?

The show’s answer is that they are made. Nurture, not nature, is destiny—but it can be tamed.

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About That Young Pope

A cat and dog play with a ball of yarn in the shape of a smiley face.

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Lenny Belardo, the young pope, may or may not be a miracle worker chosen by God, but first he is a human caught up in his own history. The same can be said for the doting but unsparing Sister Mary, the grandiose Cardinal Spencer, the pedophile Archbishop Kurtwell, the timid Monsignor Gutierrez, and on down the list of faithful. A church is made up of leaders wrestling with their own pasts, but so is a congregation—it is the leaders’ jobs to overcome the pain that has shaped them so as to ease the pain that has shaped others.

Sister Mary dispensed that very wisdom in the first episode of the series, telling her de facto son Lenny that “your personal aches, your enormous sufferings, your terrible memories ... must take a back seat” for the good of the church’s one billion congregants. Lenny did not heed this advice, not at first. As Sorrentino then unspooled intrigue-ridden and hilarious plotlines about an insurgent pope, he also threaded in reveries about Lenny’s childhood, mostly centering on his parents having abandoned him. The pope himself constantly referred to his orphanhood in conversation.

All of this was not just biographical information. We were meant to understand that Lenny’s obsession with mystery, his hardline take on abortion, his angst towards faith, and his general disinterest in providing comfort for others all stemmed from his sad childhood. He wanted to make the people of the world feel like orphans so that they would ache for God as he ached for his parents.

Sorrentino’s psychoanalytical vision of character—the assurance that childhood inputs have symmetrical outputs in adulthood—came through most clearly in the finale, a buffet of revelations about past traumas. Gutierrez revealed he’d been abused as a child. Mary’s parentlessness was openly discussed. And the monstrous Kurtwell tearfully recounted molestation at the age of 12—on the way to confessing that he in adulthood preyed on boys.

There was a moment when it seemed that Lenny might forgive Kurtwell based on his horrifying past. Instead he exiled him to Ketchikan, Alaska—the spot where the innocent Cardinal Ozolins had been grievously suffering thanks to Lenny’s earlier casual cruelty. Finally, the pope was acting not out of capriciousness but out of justice. Finally, he was saying that being a victim is no excuse for being a monster, and that the role of the church lies not in the perpetuation of the past but in the transcending of it.

How did he come to this revelation? The Young Pope ’s ninth and tenth episodes read mysteriously, with many explicit references to Lenny having changed—even revising his intolerance against homosexuals in the clergy—but few clear explanations for why. One factor, though, must have been that his past had become a source of salvation rather than of suffering. Love letters he’d written long ago, squirreled away as blackmail material by Kurtwell, ended up boosting Lenny’s popularity when released to the world. This development brought to life a prophecy he once made about congregants returning in droves, but it did so through a display of affection, warmth, and availability of the sort that he longed spurned.

And so, the power of those positive attributes suddenly came to the fore. In the finale, a cardinal listed the pope’s various supernatural-seeming feats that could qualify him for sainthood. They were all about helping others. When meeting a group of third-graders touring the Vatican, Lenny made one of his typical out-of-nowhere efforts at intimidation, and the sight of kids bursting into tears seemed to genuinely disturb him. The reminder of his childhood misery, the specter of him causing pain by withholding love just as his parents did, felt like a turning point: Why terrorize rather than comfort?

Throughout, children have always seemed the key to Lenny’s spiritual development. In one shocking scene, he lovingly held a newborn and then accidentally dropped it—a sign of a complicated relationship with innocence and caring if there ever was one. Many of his most concrete papal actions were to protect kids: prosecuting Kurtwell, defeating the corrupt Sister Antonia, sending Mary to open more children’s charities.

Lenny’s final act of the season, his sermon in Venice, was an overture to the church’s children: its congregants. He held the speech in that particular city because that is where he believes his long-lost parents to be, and as he looked into the audience with a telescope, he even saw a couple who might have been his mother and father. But he had come not to find them but to say farewell to them, just as he recently said farewell to his father figure Cardinal Spencer and his mother figure Sister Mary. For he had located an alternate source of unconditional love in faith, and realized that his role is to be such a source for others.

His sermon recounted a saintly woman on her deathbed, peppered with existential questions by children: “Are we healthy or are we sick? Are we good or are we bad? Do we still have time or has it run out?” Replied the woman, “It doesn’t matter.” “Who is God?,”the kids asked. The answer: “God smiles.” The pope then asked the assembly to smile—a remarkable request from a pope who has spent so long scowling.

The very final moments of the season posed one more mystery as Lenny declared his faith to the audience and then doubled over in pain. As cardinals attended to him and his eyelids flickered, an image of the Virgin Mary appeared in the clouds. Was this Pope Pius XIII dying to be with God? Was he being struck with the Holy Spirit? The camera panned out and out and out until it encompassed the entire Earth. A possible takeaway: One person on the globe has conquered himself, so as to make way for the divine.

The Young Pope

The Young Pope is an English-language Italian drama television series created and directed by Paolo Sorrentino for Sky Atlantic , HBO , and Canal+ . The series, staring Jude Law and Diane Keaton , follows the papacy of Pius XIII, born Lenny Belardo, a young cardinal from New York, Lenny Belardo who becomes pope of the Catholic Church when the leading contenders of the Papal conclave fail to win election. Installed as a compromise candidate, Belardo takes the name of Pius XIII and immediately proceeds to challenge the established traditions and practices of the Vatican.

1.1 Episode 1
1.2 Episode 2
1.3 Episode 7
1.4 Episode 8
1.5 Episode 9
1.6 Episode 10
3 External links

Season 1 [ edit ]

Episode 1 [ edit ], episode 2 [ edit ], episode 7 [ edit ], episode 8 [ edit ], episode 9 [ edit ], episode 10 [ edit ], cast [ edit ].

Jude Law - Pope Pius XIII (born Lenny Belardo)
Diane Keaton - Sister Mary
Silvio Orlando - Cardinal Angelo Voiello
Javier Cámara - Monsignor Bernardo Gutierrez
Scott Shepherd - Cardinal Andrew Dussolier
Cécile de France - Sofia
Ludivine Sagnier - Esther
Toni Bertorelli - Cardinal Caltanissetta
James Cromwell - Cardinal Michael Spencer

External links [ edit ]

The Young Pope quotes at the Internet Movie Database

Italian TV shows
Drama TV shows

A Man Without Qualities: HBO’s “The Young Pope”

By Rachel Syme

In HBOs “The Young Pope” Jude Law stars as a malevolently icy pontiff who just might be a saint.

In 2013, the young Italian perfumer Filippo Sorcinelli, who has also made glittering robes for two Popes, launched his fragrance house, UNUM, with a signature scent. The perfume, Lavs, is a concentrated version of the one he made to spritz on the papal garments before they were delivered to the Vatican’s inner sancta. A vérité nod to the halls of St. Peter’s—full of resin and incense and myrrh—it is also a bit too operatic to be subtle. Lenny Belardo, the fictional American Pope at the center of Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino’s new HBO series, “The Young Pope,” would be disgusted by the existence of such a fragrance. Played with a malevolent flatness by Jude Law, Lenny may have come into power at only forty-seven, but he has no interest in Vatican novelties, flashy promotional campaigns, or building the papacy’s social-media channels. Instead, he emerges from the conclave as an arch conservative (his choice of the name Pius XIII places him in a lineage of extreme orthodoxy), a Pope who not only refuses to be photographed but also obscures himself completely from his public. No travelling abroad, no glad-handing the press. He appears to the masses from his balcony only in shadow (for the first five episodes, at least); in depriving them of his lovely visage, his public must feel the searching, lonesome quality of grasping for faith in the dark. Early in the series, Lenny gives a smirking speech to the Vatican’s plucky marketing manager about his plan to follow in the footsteps of Banksy, Salinger, and Daft Punk, rather than those of his pontifical forebears; he intends to be the Pope without a face, because he knows that there is nothing more alluring than that which we cannot have.

“The Young Pope” is, at its core, a show about the construction of faith, both on a macro-level (the historical spectacle and grandiosity of the Vatican, and Lenny’s complex relationship to it) and an individual one (how each person builds a scaffolding of belief around his or her life). This is familiar territory for Sorrentino, who wrote and directed all ten episodes, and whose Oscar-winning film “The Great Beauty” was a parable about the construction of the self: the film followed a bon-vivant Roman journalist, Jep, nearing his twilight years, who wonders whether the identity he has claimed for himself (debauched, excessive, the life of the party) is simply a means to mask his deepest pain. The subject of faith swoops in at the end of that film, as Jep is tasked with interviewing an ancient nun on the verge of sainthood. As Jep takes a boat to the lighthouse where he had his happiest moment as a young man, Sorrentino shows the nun crawling up the Scala Santa stairs on her hands and knees, bloody and battered by her mission.

Sorrentino presents a murkier vision of faith in “The Young Pope,” using woozy and disorienting dream sequences in order to question Lenny’s version of reality, not to mention his belief in God. The pilot begins with not one but two dreams in a row. In the first shot of the series, we see Lenny crawl into St. Mark’s Square, in Venice, on his hands and knees, out of a pile of infants.* We know that this scene is surreal and impossible, and, as Lenny wakes with a start, the viewer is in on the joke. We see Lenny rise, dress in his sacred attire (with a gratuitous shot of Law’s bare butt—a nod to the freedoms of premium cable), and proceed through a swooning crowd of nuns and cardinals as he prepares to deliver his first homily to the faithful from the balcony. Sorrentino shoots this scene as a striking, painterly tableau through marble corridors. As Lenny steps in front of the throng, the clouds part and the sun emerges. The sudden weather change looks like a miracle, a confirmation of his divinity. Then he starts to speak about the joys of masturbation, and the cardinals rush to depose him. Just as they are about to pull him offstage with a hook, Lenny wakes in a cold sweat again.

His nightmares are nothing compared to the havoc he wreaks in reality. We learn that Lenny’s appointment was the result of a compromise: Cardinal Voiello, the Vatican Secretary of State, played with doddering humor (and a gigantic artificial facial mole) by Silvio Orlando, swayed the conclave to choose the young Pope because he believed that Lenny would be a malleable puppet. When he proves to be anything but, the cardinals are thrown behind the same smoke screen that Sorrentino places before the viewer. Sorrentino wants the viewer to feel as unsettled and muddled watching this new Pope as his Vatican colleagues do. Sorrentino’s Vatican resembles Versailles, and Lenny’s behavior channels the petulant Roi Soleil. Later, he demands that his maternal figure only refer to him as “Your Holiness”; he makes high-ranking cardinals perform minuscule personal tasks; he rebukes a kindly old cook who offers to make him pasta fagiole by telling her that friendly relationships are poisonous, a snipe that brings her to tears.

In his cruelty, Lenny channels other Bad Men of cable: Tony Soprano, Frank Underwood, Walter White. But Lenny’s despotic machinations are complicated by the fact that he might very well also be a saint, albeit one with a nefarious moral code. Via a series of gauzy flashbacks fit for an after-school special, we learn that, as a child, he was abandoned by his parents at an orphanage. The woman who raised him—Sister Mary (Diane Keaton), who later becomes his papal consigliere and public mouthpiece—believes that he healed a dying woman from sickness. In the second episode, we see the possibility that Lenny can perform miracles with our own eyes: he charms a kicking and braying kangaroo, which arrived at the Vatican as a gift, and frees it into the papal gardens. Later, when he meets the kangaroo in the gardens at night, the two stare at each other as if in sanctified understanding. He also helps a barren woman to procreate by praying for divine intervention. We believe that he has some sort of magical power. But he also confesses to more than one confidant that his own belief in God is on shaky ground. Sorrentino powerfully wields his ability to confuse; we never know if Lenny is truly doubtful or performing his doubt for cynical ends.

The entire show is so campy that it draws attention to its own bravura performativity—Sorrentino drapes Law in glamorous excess: crisp white gowns with golden details, a statement garden hat with a brim made for boating, cherry-red leather shoes, an ivory tracksuit that is the finest sacred leisurewear Rome has to offer, and the papal tiara, a conical silver adornment that stands at least a foot high. In one montage, Lenny dresses in pounds of vestments to the sounds of LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It.” But any fun that might be gained through this visual humor is undercut by Lenny’s icy misanthropy; the show is pleasing to the eye but not to the soul. Sorrentino’s odd cocktail of sombre Machiavellian drama and Cinecittà-inflected flamboyance proves confusing enough to make the viewer question her own comprehension. And perhaps this is deliberate: his swirling, oversaturated visuals mimic the feeling of watching someone powerful and unpredictable change his persona in every scene he’s in. Sometimes, Belardo is charming, and even vulnerable, moments before threatening individuals with total ruin. The buzz around the show, which included a viral meme in which people replaced pop-song lyrics with now stale jokes about the Pope being so very, very young, suggested that the star would be a libertine; the trailers prepared viewers for the saga of a religious roué who smokes and drinks and sets fire to convention, and maybe even has carnal relations (spoiler: he doesn’t). But the character we meet in the series is far more sinister. This is a Pope who is nothing more than a metaphor to himself, who demands in turn that the Pope be a symbol of terrifying absence to everyone else: a man without essence. In the end, that may be the most potent kind of selfhood, because it is so destabilizing to everyone who comes into its orbit. This is a man in sumptuous robes with nothing of substance underneath; beautiful to look at, but as ephemeral and menacing as smoke.

* An earlier version of this sentence misidentified the location of the first shot.

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'The Young Pope' ended with a bombshell — here's everything we know about season 2

Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the season finale of "The Young Pope."

"The Young Pope" doesn't have much of a plot. It's more of a character study than a drama . And after a tension-free season, Pope Pius XIII — AKA Lenny Belardo AKA the young pope AKA Jude Law — finally gave a speech in public.

The episode, uncharacteristically, ended with a major cliffhanger. In the middle of his speech, Belardo collapses and the camera zooms out into space.

So, is he dead?

Probably not. We know this because "The Young Pope" will have a second season .

The Italian production company Wildside will produce the show again, with the co-financing of HBO, Canal Plus, and Sky television. With a budget of $45 million, the first season was Italy's most expensive television production ever.

Filming for the second season hasn't started yet, but showrunner Paolo Sorrentino has been writing the script since at least last October , after the first three episodes premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

Though Sorrentino directed all ten episodes of the show's first season, it's unclear if he'll do the same for the next one. He's also planning to direct a film about Italy's scandalous former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi . (For the record, Italy's prime minister when the show premiered, Matteo Renzi, is a fan of "The Young Pope.")

Jude Law, though, is expected to return as Pope Pius XIII.

What exactly happened to Lenny?

At the end of the episode, Belardo flies to Venice to grant sainthood to Juana, a teenager from Guatemala who was known for her healing abilities. It's in Venice that Lenny collapses. In his speech, he asks the crowd to smile, then he takes out a telescope given to him by Monsignor Gutierrez, now his personal assistant. He hovers over a couple of old hippies in the crowd. First, they appear elderly. Then he looks at them again, and they're younger. Then they turn old again. The couple turns and leaves the crowd.

The couple, it seems, are Belardo's parents.

Then, suddenly, Belardo weeps and collapses in front of the crowd. Everyone in the crowd is strangely serene, giving the scene a dreamlike feeling. Did that just happen? Did Belardo really just see his parents and collapse?

What can we expect in season two?

Most of the show's plot is wrapped up. Not that "The Young Pope" had much of a story to begin with, but until the last fifteen minutes, most of the questions we had seemed to be resolved.

By the end of the season, Pope Pius XIII has softened considerably, and seems poised to roll back some of the Catholic Church's harsher stances on social issues. He vanquished Cardinal Kurtwell, the center of a major pedophile scandal, to Ketchikan, Alaska. Pius turned his Cardinal Secretery of State, Angelo Voiello, his chief rival for power within the church, into an ally. And he's seemed to have made peace with his orphanhood, which had haunted him his whole life.

Most importantly, he finally makes a grand public speech, indicating that he's giving up on his policy of Salinger-esque seclusion in favor of becoming a cheerleader for Catholics.

The collapse raises all sorts of questions.

After wrapping up most of the plot in the first season, the last fifteen minutes of the tenth episode raises all sorts of questions for the next one.

Is Belardo severely injured? Will he recover by the time we see him again? Will the Catholic Church have to appoint another pope already?

And if that's the case, what will the show do with Jude Law? Will he be acting from a hospital bed? Will we get more flashbacks?

Or, perhaps he'll recover immediately. If so, how will he change?

It seems that he'll start looking for his parents again. After seeing them in Venice, he knows they must still be alive and interested in seeing him. So he may make a more conscious effort to speak to them.

And will he also meet up with his unnamed teenage love from California, now that his love letters were made public? That, too, remains an open question.

Aside from Belardo, what will happen to Sister Mary, played by Diane Keaton? In the tenth episode, she's assigned to live in Africa and lead the church's missions there. Will we see her again? It's unclear if she'll return to the show.

In any case, it's clear that Paolo Sorrentino and Jude Law are sticking around to keep making "The Young Pope." It's yet another testament to the prestige of television. Sorrentino, an Oscar winner, and Law, a two-time Oscar nominee, aren't just treating the show as a miniseries they do between movies. They're in it for the long run.

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‘The Young Pope’ Finds Its Heart

Forget the kangaroo and the track-suited priests. The craziest thing on the HBO series was its late-breaking earnestness.

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“The child pope has become a man.”

The line was yet another gnomic pronouncement from Pius XIII, the alternately opaque and disarmingly open namesake of The Young Pope. Given the show’s dizzying mix of irony and sincerity, it would be easy to let the quip slip by in the whirlwind of Monday night’s finale: On The Young Pope, a statement of purpose and a sarcastic aside could be one and the same. But Lenny’s declaration of maturity indicated that Paolo Sorrentino’s nonsensical marvel of a show was actually saying something — about absolution, or personal growth — without sacrificing the deadpan strangeness that made it so exceptional in the first place.

Early on, it was unclear how Sorrentino actually wanted us to feel about Lenny Belardo, the first American pope (and likely the first pontiff to compliment his own good looks in mixed company). Did the show actually side with his reactionary beliefs, like condemning abortion and banning homosexuals from the priesthood? Did the show need a purist to contrast with the more ideologically flexible higher-ups at the Vatican? Was Lenny actually a miracle-working saint, as mother figure Sister Mary (Diane Keaton) insisted? If he was, did that mean his dickish behavior was condoned by God himself? Sometimes it felt as if Sorrentino was too interested in gleeful blasphemy to provide answers, or more charitably, that ambiguity was the point. And ambiguous lunacy would have been enough to cement The Young Pope as a sardonic, rollicking good time. If all we got out of this was a CGI kangaroo and nuns playing basketball, dayenu.

In its final episodes, though, The Young Pope made a perceptible shift toward genuine emotion, plumbing the depths of grief and forgiveness. Two detours outside the Vatican finally explored the impact of Lenny’s conservative, closed-off church on the real world by showing the human cost of corruption and child abuse. The deaths of Lenny’s surrogate brother, Cardinal Dussolier (Scott Shepherd), and father, Cardinal Spencer (James Cromwell), sent shockwaves through the pope’s psyche. And the trauma inflicted by his parents’ abandonment of a 7-year-old Lenny at a Catholic orphanage slowly emerged as the defining struggle of the show. This is still a series that opened with a childlike protagonist obsessed with childhood climbing out of a literal pile of babies. It’s just that The Young Pope started to wed its titular hero’s psychology to actual narrative momentum. As Pius learned to accept his loss, he became more fit to lead, less vindictive and more empathetic. The evolution would feel capricious — a not-quite-earned happy ending about a child’s maturation — but this show never claimed to be logical. What bigger tweak of our expectations could there be than a tear-stained conclusion?

Sorrentino made this process of learning to accept rejection literal in the final scene. During his long-awaited first public address in Venice, Lenny spies his aged parents in the crowd. They turn their backs on him and walk away, and though it visibly pains him, he pushes through to end the speech on a note of pure optimism. His parents’ goofy hippie outfits, the same ones they’ve been wearing in flashbacks, suggest this was all in Lenny’s head. Or maybe it wasn’t; nothing on this show is unthinkable. Either way, the moment is more than a major (and surprising!) step forward for someone who’d previously channeled his hangups into draconian policies. It’s something that seemed impossible on The Young Pope : earnest and moving. The tell, as with so much else on this sonically impeccable series, is in the soundtrack. The music is classical, with the EDM and Beyoncé covers that undercut the series’ otherwise heavy moments nowhere to be heard.

Slowly, Sorrentino even gave us in the last two episodes the answers he had withheld for eight hours. Yes, Lenny is a bona fide miracle worker; no, Lenny’s sainthood isn’t an endorsement of his worldview. As Lenny matured, he also softened. The anti-gay pontiff asks the gay Cardinal Gutierrez (Javier Cámara) to be his personal secretary, and admits his views are evolving — not an official change in policy, but a start. The change of heart helps mitigate the most destructive consequence of The Young Pope ’s glib comedy: writing off the human cost of his Church’s new conservatism as a punch line. Pius’s unrepentant rudeness to his subordinates was always funny. The suffering it threatened to bring about was not, a fact the show acknowledged instead of letting it curdle into cruelty. Easy but uncomfortable parallels to certain, less dynamic world leaders mercifully fell away, and shrugging off the burden of geopolitical commentary allowed The Young Pope to claim Lenny’s story as his and his alone.

The tonal balancing act crystallized in the closing minutes of the finale, which set up a pat happy ending. Sister Mary goes to Africa to care for children. Secretary of State Cardinal Voiello (Silvio Orlando) and Pius have come to an understanding and a cordial working relationship. Lenny has at long last revealed himself, literally and emotionally, to an adoring public. Then after his address, Lenny collapses, with a reverential, deliberately Christlike aerial shot of his prone body reminding us one last time that yes, this man is a canonical, soon-to-be-canonized saint. The shot is a preposterous blow-up of stakes, mocking its own unlikelihood. And then the camera slowly pans out, encompassing first Venice, then Italy, then the entire world — a God’s-eye view. It’s self-consciously grandiose and patently absurd and imbued with true feeling. The real miracle: None of those elements contradict the others. Sorrentino exaggerates his own pretensions while expressing them with more conviction than ever. He paints a target on his own back in the process, inviting us to poke fun at him for embodying what he’d once appeared to spoof.

The Young Pope managed this pivot while maintaining the sense of humor that seemed to preclude straight-faced passion. The finale had plenty of the show’s signature joyful visual gags and not-quite-one-liners: Pius does Pilates to Belle and Sebastian (on a reformer, so you know he’s serious); when he asks a child why he isn’t eating hamburgers with his peers, the boy replies, “My mommy wants me to stick to a Mediterranean diet.” The Young Pope had taught us not to take sentimentality at face value. But over the last few hours, Sorrentino steered his tone into the serious while still avoiding the self -serious, never undercutting the buoyant silliness that came before.

The first half of The Young Pope surprised us with the unpredictable. The second revealed an endgame and ambition, and a sort of thesis statement: Art cannot live on trolling alone. It needs a heart, too, even if that goes against the guiding insanity of this show. The Young Pope stirred as much as it entertained — quite an accomplishment for the show that gave us priests in tracksuits.

Disclosure: HBO is an initial investor in The Ringer.

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‘The Young Pope’ Review: Finale Upends Expectations By Delivering What Everyone’s Been Waiting To See

Ben travers.

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[ Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for the first season of “ The Young Pope .” ]

Lenny showed his face to his people, and it may have killed him.

When “The Young Pope” premiered, we may have expected Lenny to die — an assassination seemed imminent, given his controversial positions — but it never seemed likely he would bend to peer pressure and give the people what they want: him. Lenny. The pope, in the flesh, unmasked and preaching…happiness?

Paolo Sorrentino ‘s first five episodes were filled with contradictions: Lenny was a young pope with old attitudes, and his elderly peers had far more progressive minds. Though he knew he was a handsome man (and called attention to it frequently), Lenny refused to let anyone take his photograph. From the astounding contradiction that Lenny was a pope who might not believe in God, to the simple sound of his first name — calling the Pope “Lenny” has a formal discrepancy to it, like saying “Hey Barry” to the president — “The Young Pope” built itself around contradictions in order to explore their origins and consequences.

Yet most perplexing to audiences was how to interpret Lenny’s actions, and thus the show itself. Were we supposed to laugh or look beyond the absurdities? Were we supposed to be angry or admire the ideas? Were we supposed to respect its teachings or reject its principles? What we were supposed to make of “The Young Pope” boiled down to what we made of Lenny, and as the season progressed, his personal history was fleshed out.

After the intentionally jarring opening episodes (that to me, clearly defined the show’s tremendous sense of humor ), one issue moved steadily to the forefront: parents, or in Lenny’s case, a lack of parents. Their absence changed Lenny’s life, and understanding why they chose to leave him has proven not only difficult for him to comprehend, but it’s jaded his perspective of the world. Specifically, it altered his view of God.

The Young Pope Season 1 finale Javier Camara Jude Law

The comparison of parents to a higher power (and vice versa) isn’t an entirely new concept, but rarely has it been so thoroughly examined. Lenny, an orphan, illustrated his desire for parents and parental figures throughout Season 1. How he was orphaned came up time and time again — in dreams, in prayers, in flashbacks, and in the present — exemplifying how drastically a lack of parental presence affected him, as well as how important Sister Mary (Diane Keaton) and Cardinal Michael Spencer (James Cromwell) were as a substitute mother and father.

READ MORE: ‘Legion’ Premiere: The 9 Moments That Make It a Masterpiece

Of course, like all jilted young boys (and many lifelong Catholics), Lenny didn’t want to talk about his feelings. He didn’t want to expose his weaknesses. He didn’t want anyone to know how crucial these figures were to him, so he bottled up his emotions out of pride…just as he protected his feelings toward God out of obligation. No one could know the pope didn’t believe in God, just as no one could know Lenny missed his parents.

So what did the young boy do? He threw a fit. During his petulant tirade in the second episode, Lenny transferred the anger he felt toward his parents (and God) to the church’s constituents. He was frustrated by never knowing his mother and father; never understanding why they abandoned him. Similar feelings built up during his relationship with God. There were moments he was certain (or at least aware) of His existence — like when he healed his friend’s mother through prayer — but far more often Lenny felt deserted to his own decisions. Not even after becoming the pope could Lenny see, speak to, or connect with God. And even after becoming the pope, Lenny couldn’t see his parents.

Until he could: Lenny’s emotional and spiritual growth were well-marked in the series, as dreams of his parents became visions and visions became reality (when imposters showed up claiming to be his birth parents). He transferred a lot of his emotions to Sister Mary and Cardinal Michael, as well, and the first time Lenny showed true compassion was when Michael died. He admitted to moving on quickly from the death of his adopted brother, Andrew, but wept openly at Michael’s bedside. Seeing his substitute mother leave sparked the first pain in Lenny’s chest, making it fitting that when he witnessed his actual parents turn their backs on him during the speech (imagined or symbolic), he’d suffer even greater heartbreak.

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Such internal struggles are as widely identifiable as they are complicated, and “The Young Pope” adequately illustrated Lenny’s shifting positions without betraying his core self. While in recent episodes such movements may have been overly confounding (Did the pope really poison the water-hoarding nun in Africa?), the finale found an excellent balance. Opening on affirmation and closing with encouragement, the middle was marked with the methodical, unsentimental approach we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from the young pope:

Lenny joked about skipping out on playing Vatican tour guide for third graders before lashing out at them (in what clearly was not a joke). He even stuck his tongue out in a childish act of defiance. Later, Lenny again sent someone to Alaska as punishment, this time using Kurtwell’s “disease” paired with his white, glowing globe to guide his banishment. He even refused to turn around in a restaurant, deeming showing his face in such a way as “an exhibition.”

But perhaps the most joyous marker of change without abandoning Lenny’s core characteristics came right away: While sitting with an unidentified member of the clergy, Lenny noticed him gaze guiltily at the very statue Cardinal Voiello confessed to having illicit thoughts about. His patience exhausted, Lenny hit the secret button under his desk used to call in an assistant who would make up an excuse for his holiness to get out of the meeting. In earlier episodes, the nun only further frustrated Lenny by giving a hilariously lame excuse . But this time, she had a good one — a truthful one, it turns out — and Lenny’s fearful face upon seeing her quickly contorted into an approving smile and nod.

What such emotional range was intended to impart was change, and Sorrentino made a strong case for Lenny’s significant developments in the final episode. The idea of Lenny exposing his face to a crowd may have seemed inevitable since the beginning, but doing so with a heartfelt message met with such an enthusiastic response was far removed from the realm of possibility just a few episodes prior.

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While Lenny’s published love letters played their part, I’d credit Cardinal Aguirre for Lenny’s decision to change. The below exchange with the smiling advisor contained advice Lenny passed on to his people:

Lenny: “How are you?” Aguirre: “Who, me? I’m always in a good mood.” Lenny: “I’ve always associated good mood and stupidity.” Aguirre: “And not without reason, Your Holiness. However, you can’t imagine the amount of energy that comes from good mood and stupidity.”

The conversation continued, as Aguirre informed the pope of the results from a study of churchgoers who overwhelmingly said they wanted to hear a face-to-face sermon with the pope. Though both Aguirre and the pope agreed such a meeting wouldn’t change things, Aguirre argued there was good reason to do it anyway: “If you appear in public, it would help these people to be in a good mood.” He even went so far as to say it was the pope’s duty to put people in a good mood, which Lenny disagreed with at first.

The Young Pope Season 1 finale Sebastian Roche Jude Law

He came around, as did the show itself. What started as a battle between the contradictory elements of the church (and religion in general) developed into a discussion about those contradictions while acknowledging the one-sided nature of the debate. To start the season, Lenny argued we stick to God’s words as law, in part because he didn’t believe God was up there making changes over time. We came to realize that belief stemmed from issues with his parents. (Early on, he told Father Gutierrez, “It all comes back to the mother.” How true.) Once he started to resolve those issues, he came to better understand God’s silence. The finale showed us what we never expected: Lenny’s face on TV, imparting a message of hope to a receptive audience.

The result was an unexpectedly positive and profoundly constructive interpretation of faith from a series often eager to expose its fundamental flaws. “The Young Pope” never ignored those elements — even including a rather lenient punishment for Archbishop Kurwell after exposing his monstrous sins in the prior episode — and thus mimicked the formula that alienated and attracted viewers: Funny and serious, realistic and mystical, merciless and compassionate, Sorrentino’s journey encompassed more than it should be able to, and only occasionally could we catch it reaching too far.

Whatever fate awaits Lenny — death or life, cancellation or continuance — his arc was expansive, and one well worth the contemplation. Contradictions often lead to conflict. This conflict built to understanding, and, better yet, to belief.

Lenny needn’t have begged: We were already smiling.

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The Young Pope

TV Mini Series

The beginning of the pontificate of Lenny Belardo, alias Pius XIII, the first American Pope in history. The beginning of the pontificate of Lenny Belardo, alias Pius XIII, the first American Pope in history. The beginning of the pontificate of Lenny Belardo, alias Pius XIII, the first American Pope in history.

Paolo Sorrentino
Diane Keaton
Silvio Orlando
159 User reviews
45 Critic reviews
5 wins & 28 nominations total

Episodes 10

Lenny Belardo

Sister Mary

Cardinal Voiello

Cardinal Gutierrez

Cardinal Dussolier

Cardinal Caltanissetta

Cardinal Michael Spencer

See all cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

Trivia The papal clothes worn by Jude Law in his role as Pope Pius XIII were created by a store which also makes clothing for the real Vatican.
Connections Featured in The Graham Norton Show: Tom Cruise/Jude Law/Catherine Tate/Cobie Smulders/Kings of Leon (2016)
Soundtracks The Dream Performed by Sumi Jo

Technical specs

Runtime 55 minutes

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Amid Health Concerns, Pope Delivers Strong Easter Message Calling for Gaza Cease-Fire

Pope Francis’ decisions to reduce his participation in two major Holy Week events had raised fears about his health.

Pope Francis, flanked by two members of the clergy, gazes down.

By Jason Horowitz

Reporting from Rome

Amid renewed concerns about his health, Pope Francis presided over Easter Sunday Mass, and with a hoarse but strong voice, he delivered a major annual message that touched on conflicts across the globe, with explicit appeals for peace in Israel, Gaza and Ukraine.

The appearance came after the pope decided to reduce his participation in two major Holy Week events, seemingly at the last minute.

Those decisions seemed to represent a new phase in a more than 11-year papacy throughout which Francis has made the acceptance of the limits that challenge and shape humanity a constant theme. Now, he seems to have entered a period in which he is himself scaling back to observe, and highlight, the limits imposed by his own health constraints, and to conserve strength for the most critical moments.

On Sunday after the Mass, Francis took a prolonged spin in his popemobile around St. Peter’s Square before ascending to a balcony overlooking it to deliver his traditional Easter message.

“Let us not allow the strengthening winds of war to blow on Europe and the Mediterranean,” he said to the tens of thousands of faithful, dignitaries, Swiss Guards and clergy filling the square.

Referring to the stone that had blocked the tomb of Jesus before his resurrection, which Easter celebrates, Francis said that “today, too, great stones, heavy stones, block the hopes of humanity.”

“The stone of war, the stone of humanitarian crises, the stone of human rights violations, the stone of human trafficking, and other stones as well,” he said.

The address was a compendium of Francis’ priorities, including the need to ease the suffering of people affected by war, natural disasters and famine in parts of the world he has himself visited. He addressed the plight of migrants, prayed for “consolation and hope” for the poor, and spoke against human trafficking and arms dealing.

But his focus, Francis said, was particularly turned toward the conflicts afflicting the world.

“My thoughts go especially to the victims of the many conflicts worldwide, beginning with those in Israel and Palestine, and in Ukraine,” he said, calling for the exchange of all prisoners between Russia and Ukraine.

“I appeal once again that access to humanitarian aid be ensured to Gaza, and call once more for the prompt release of the hostages seized on 7 October last and for an immediate cease-fire in the Strip,” he added.

Holy Week is one of the most demanding and significant on the Christian calendar, and Francis has been dogged all winter by what the Vatican has called the flu, bronchitis and cold-like symptoms. His doctor told the Italian news media on Saturday that Francis was in good shape for his age, but that flu season was difficult for him, as it was for many older people, partly because he had part of a lung removed as a young man.

In recent years, Francis’ health has declined. He had a significant portion of his large intestine removed in 2021, and last year he spent time in the hospital to remove potentially dangerous intestinal scar tissue from previous surgeries. Bad knee ligaments have often kept him to a wheelchair, and have required him to use a cane when he is on his feet.

Those ailments came to the fore last week when Francis skipped the homily , a sermon central to the Mass service, on Palm Sunday, and the traditional Good Friday procession at Rome’s Colosseum — an event he missed last year because he was recovering from bronchitis.

But this year, a chair for him had been placed on a platform outside the Colosseum, suggesting that the decision not to attend came at the last minute. The Vatican said Francis had made the decision “to conserve his health” in preparation for events on Saturday and Sunday.

Francis did preside over the Holy Thursday ritual of washing the feet of the faithful at a women’s prison in Rome. He appeared both purposeful and strong, talking with the inmates and giving a chocolate Easter egg to one of their sons. Then on Saturday evening, he presided over a long and solemn Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica.

On Sunday, Francis waved and seemed in good spirits as people shouted, “Long live the pope,” during his spin around St. Peter’s Square. He then re-emerged on the basilica’s balcony, lined with flowers, where he spoke about the toll that conflicts take on civilians.

In what amounted to a survey of the world’s often-forgotten conflicts, the pope spoke about the continuing suffering in Syria because of “a long and devastating war.” He expressed concern for Lebanese people affected by hostilities on their country’s border with Israel. He prayed for an end to the “violence, devastation and bloodshed” in Haiti, an easing of the humanitarian crisis afflicting the Rohingya ethnic minority persecuted in Myanmar, and an end to the suffering in Sudan and in the Sahel region of Africa.

And in Gaza, he said the eyes of suffering children ask: “Why? Why all this death?”

Jason Horowitz is the Rome bureau chief for The Times, covering Italy, the Vatican, Greece and other parts of Southern Europe. More about Jason Horowitz

Watch CBS News

Pope Francis says "peace is never made with weapons" at Easter Sunday mass in St. Peter's Square

Updated on: March 31, 2024 / 8:12 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Rallying from a winter-long bout of respiratory problems, Pope Francis led some 30,000 people in Easter celebrations Sunday and made a strong appeal for a cease-fire in Gaza and a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine.

Francis presided over Easter Sunday Mass in a flower-decked St. Peter's Square and then delivered a heartfelt prayer for peace in his annual roundup of global crises. In between, he made several loops around the piazza in his popemobile, greeting well-wishers.

"Peace is never made with weapons, but with outstretched hands and open hearts," Francis said from the loggia overlooking the square, to applause from the wind-swept crowd below.

The co-author of a new memoir of the pontiff told CBS News earlier this month that Francis only thinks about resignation because journalists ask him about it.

"In the book, we talk about the resignation," Fabio Marchese Ragona said. "He said, 'I am good right now, I don't think resignation.'"

The Vatican said some 30,000 people attended the Mass, with more packing the Via della Conciliazione boulevard leading to the piazza. At the start of the service, a gust of wind knocked over a large religious icon on the altar just a few feet from the pope; ushers quickly righted it.

Pope Francis delivers his "Urbi et Orbi" message at St. Peter's Square

Easter Mass is one of the most important dates on the liturgical calendar, celebrating what the faithful believe was Jesus' resurrection after his crucifixion. The Mass precedes the pope's "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) blessing, in which the pope traditionally offers a laundry list of the threats afflicting humanity.

This year, Francis said his thoughts went particularly to people in Ukraine and Gaza and all those facing war, particularly the children who he said had "forgotten how to smile."

"In calling for respect for the principles of international law, I express my hope for a general exchange of all prisoners between Russia and Ukraine: all for the sake of all!" he said.

He called for the "prompt" release of prisoners taken from Israel on Oct. 7, an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and for humanitarian access to reach Palestinians.

"Let us not allow the current hostilities to continue to have grave repercussions on the civil population, by now at the limit of its endurance, and above all on the children," he said in a speech that also touched on the plight of Haitians, the Rohingya and victims of human trafficking.

For the past few weeks, Francis has generally avoided delivering long speeches to avoid the strain on his breathing. He ditched his Palm Sunday homily last week and decided at the last minute to stay home from the Good Friday procession at the Colosseum.

The Vatican said in a brief explanation that the decision was made to "conserve his health."

The decision clearly paid off, as Francis was able to recite the prayers of the lengthy Saturday night Easter Vigil service, including administering the sacraments of baptism and First Communion to eight new Catholics, and preside over Easter Sunday Mass and deliver his speech.

Easter Mass at St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican

Francis wasn't the only leader whose mere presence at Easter offered a reassuring sign of stability and normalcy.

In Britain, King Charles III joined the queen and other members of the royal family for an Easter service at Windsor Castle in his most significant public outing since he was diagnosed with cancer last month.

The monarch offered a cheery wave to spectators as he walked into St. George's Chapel. A member of the public shouted "Happy Easter," and Charles responded "And to you."

But things were hardly normal in Jerusalem, where Easter Mass came and went at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Only a few dozen faithful attended the service as the Israel-Hamas war rages on in Gaza.

The medieval church in the Old City is the holy site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.

In years past, the church has been packed with worshippers and tourists. But the bloody conflict in Gaza, now into its sixth month, has seen a huge downturn in tourism and pilgrimages across Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The streets of the old city were also absent of Palestinian Christians from the West Bank, who normally flock to the Holy City for Easter. Since the conflict erupted, Palestinian worshippers from the Israeli-occupied territory have needed special permission to cross checkpoints into Jerusalem.

Pope Francis

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Pope Francis appeals for peace in Gaza and Ukraine at Easter Mass

The Associated Press

Pope Francis arrives as he celebrates Easter mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2024. Andrew Medichini/AP hide caption

Pope Francis arrives as he celebrates Easter mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2024.

ROME — Pope Francis rallied from a winter-long bout of respiratory problems to lead some 60,000 people in Easter celebrations Sunday, making a strong appeal for a cease-fire in Gaza and a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine.

Francis presided over Easter Sunday Mass in a flower-decked St. Peter's Square and then delivered a heartfelt prayer for peace in his annual roundup of global crises. Gaza's people, including the small Christian community there, have been a source of constant concern for Francis and Easter in the Holy Land overall was a somber affair this year given the war.

"Peace is never made with weapons, but with outstretched hands and open hearts," Francis said from the loggia overlooking the square, to applause from the wind-swept crowd below.

Francis appeared in good form, despite having celebrated the 2½-hour nighttime Easter Vigil just hours before. The pontiff, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been battling respiratory problems all winter and his full participation in Easter services was not entirely guaranteed, especially after he skipped the traditional Good Friday procession.

But in a sign the 87-year-old pontiff was feeling OK, he made several loops around the piazza in his popemobile after Mass, greeting well-wishers.

The Vatican said some 60,000 people attended the Mass, with more packing the Via della Conciliazione boulevard leading to the piazza. At the start of the service, a gust of wind knocked over a large religious icon on the altar just a few feet from the pope; ushers quickly righted it.

Easter Mass is one of the most important dates on the liturgical calendar, celebrating what the faithful believe was Jesus' resurrection after his crucifixion. The Mass precedes the "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) blessing, in which the pope traditionally offers a laundry list of the threats afflicting humanity.

This year, Francis said his thoughts went particularly to people in Ukraine and Gaza and all those facing war, particularly the children who he said had "forgotten how to smile."

"In calling for respect for the principles of international law, I express my hope for a general exchange of all prisoners between Russia and Ukraine: all for the sake of all!" he said.

He called for the "prompt" release of prisoners taken from Israel on Oct. 7, an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and for humanitarian access to reach Palestinians.

The Vatican said in a brief explanation that the decision was made to "conserve his health."

A view of St. Peter's Square at The Vatican during the Easter Sunday mass celebrated by Pope Francis, Sunday, March 31, 2024. Alessandra Tarantino/AP hide caption

A view of St. Peter's Square at The Vatican during the Easter Sunday mass celebrated by Pope Francis, Sunday, March 31, 2024.

King Charles greets crowds in Windsor

Francis wasn't the only leader whose mere presence at Easter offered a reassuring sign of stability and normalcy.

The monarch offered a cheery wave to spectators as he walked into St. George's Chapel, and then spent time shaking hands and greeting well-wishers after the service. "You're very brave to stand out here in the cold," Charles told them.

Subdued celebrations in Jerusalem

But things were hardly normal in Jerusalem, where Easter Mass came and went at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Only a few dozen faithful attended the service as the Israel-Hamas war rages on in Gaza.

The medieval church in the Old City is the holy site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.

The streets of the old city were also absent of Palestinian Christians from the West Bank, who normally flock to the city for Easter. Since the conflict erupted, Palestinian worshippers from the Israeli-occupied territory have needed special permission to cross checkpoints into Jerusalem.

Pope Francis celebrates Easter mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2024. Andrew Medichini/AP hide caption

Pope Francis celebrates Easter mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2024.

Gaza war casts a long shadow

In Gaza, the situation was even more bleak. Only a few dozen Palestinian Christians celebrated Easter Mass at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, but there wasn't much to celebrate.

"This doesn't feel like Easter, like other times," said Winnie Tarazi, a Christian from Gaza City. "It's because we are here deprived of our homes, our belongings, our children, and everything. We lost our family between those who fled, who stayed, and who were destroyed."

The sentiment was similar in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, where only a few dozen people attended Mass at the Church of the Nativity.

"There is no holiday atmosphere and there is no joyful atmosphere this year," said Bethlehem resident George Kanawati. "The holidays lack joy and the smile of children, which the occupation always tries to erase and kill this smile."

The plight of Gaza was also a concern in New York, where police arrested three people who disrupted the Easter Vigil Mass at Manhattan's St. Patrick's Cathedral on Saturday. They held up a banner reading "Silence = Death" on the altar and yelled "Free Palestine" as they were escorted out, police said.

Vatican Swiss Guards take position in St. Peter's Square at The Vatican where Pope Francis will celebrate the Easter Sunday mass, Sunday, March 31, 2024. Andrew Medichini/AP hide caption

Vatican Swiss Guards take position in St. Peter's Square at The Vatican where Pope Francis will celebrate the Easter Sunday mass, Sunday, March 31, 2024.

Iraqi Christians determined to remain

But in Iraq's Nineveh Plains, where 10 years ago the Islamic State group killed and displaced thousands of minority Iraqis, hundreds of people celebrated Easter in a region that has had a Christian presence since around the time of Jesus. Iraq's Christian community, which was once some 1.5 million strong, now numbers at most a few hundred thousand but they came out in droves for Easter.

"We will definitely stick to this land and remain here until the last, and hope for a change," said Nassar Mubarak, who attended Easter Mass at the Immaculate Conception church in Qaraqosh.

The Vatican
Pope Francis

Pope skips Good Friday event to preserve health ahead of Easter, Vatican says

ROME — Pope Francis skipped the traditional Good Friday procession at Rome’s Colosseum to protect his health, the Vatican said, making a last-minute decision that added to concerns about his frail condition during a particularly busy period.

Francis had been expected to preside over the Way of the Cross procession, which re-enacts Christ’s Passion and crucifixion, and composed the meditations that are read aloud at each station. But just as the event was about to begin, the Vatican announced that Francis was following the event from his home at the Vatican.

“To conserve his health in view of the vigil tomorrow and Mass on Easter Sunday, Pope Francis will follow the Via Crucis at the Colosseum this evening from the Casa Santa Marta,” a statement from the Vatican press office said.

While Francis had also skipped the event in 2023 because he was recovering from bronchitis and it was a particularly cold night, his decision to stay home this year suggested his plans had changed suddenly.

The 87-year-old Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been battling what he and the Vatican have described as a case of the flu, bronchitis or a cold all winter long. For the last several weeks he has occasionally asked an aide to read aloud his speeches, and heskipped his Palm Sunday homily altogether.

The decision to stay home appeared to be very last-minute: Francis’ chair was in place on the platform outside the Colosseum where he was to preside over the rite. His close aide, Monsignor Leonardo Sapienza, was on hand and moved the television screen around on the platform so Francis would have a better view of what was going on inside the Colosseum itself.

But at 9:10 p.m., five minutes before the official start of the procession, the Vatican press office announced on Telegram that he wouldn’t attend. The chair was quickly taken away.

His absence was noted with concern but understanding among some of the estimated 25,000 pilgrims who packed the area for the torchlit procession.

“I think of course it causes concern for the people who make sure that he is doing well, but he must have his reasons for the decisions that he makes,” said Marlene Steuber, who was visiting from Costa Rica. “Still I think that people are involved and very blessed and happy to be here and experience these events here in Rome.”

Brian Hopp, a visitor from Chicago, noted that Francis has had his health challenges this year.

“I definitely don’t think it was a decision taken lightly. I think a lot was taken into it and I think he probably prioritized his health for Easter, which I think is a very responsible thing to do,” Hopp said. “I know he has been going through a lot this year so I don’t expect him to be able to make every event.”

The hasty announcement recalled Francis’ last-minute decision on Palm Sunday , when the Vatican issued the pope’s homily in advance to journalists, and his aide got up to give him his glasses to read it. But Francis made clear he wouldn’t read it, and the aide put the glasses back in his pocket. The Vatican later said the homily was replaced by a moment of silent prayer.

Francis had appeared in good form earlier in the day for a Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica, though he remained mostly seated and it was not a particularly taxing event that required him to speak at length.

On Thursday, he left the Vatican to preside over the Holy Thursday foot-washing ritual at a Rome women’s prison. While he performed the rite from his wheelchair, Francis appeared strong and engaged with the inmates, even giving a big chocolate Easter egg to one woman’s young son.

On Saturday, he is scheduled to preside over a lengthy evening Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s, one of the most solemn events in the liturgical calendar. He also is due to preside over Easter Sunday Mass in the piazza and deliver his “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) speech rounding up global crises and threats to humanity.

In addition to his respiratory problems, Francis had a chunk of his large intestine removed in 2021 and was hospitalized twice last year, including once to remove intestinal scar tissue from previous surgeries to address diverticulosis, or bulges in his intestinal wall. He has been using a wheelchair and cane for over a year because of bad knee ligaments.

In his recently published memoirs, “Life: My Story Through History,” Francis said he isn’t suffering from any health problems that would require him to resign and that he still has “ many projects to bring to fruition.”

This story has been corrected to show that this was the second time Francis skipped the event, after staying home also in 2023.

Pope skips homily at start of busy Holy Week during Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square

ROME — Pope Francis decided at the last minute to skip his homily during Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, avoiding a strenuous speech at the start of a busy Holy Week that will test his increasingly frail health.

Hobbled by bad knees and persistent respiratory problems , Francis also didn’t participate in the procession of cardinals around the obelisk in the piazza at the start of the Mass. Instead, the 87-year-old pontiff blessed the palm fronds and olive branches carried by the faithful from the altar.

Francis had been expected to deliver a homily halfway through the service and had pronounced the prayers during the Mass. But after several seconds of silence, announcers said Francis had decided not to deliver the homily itself.

Image: TOPSHOT-VATICAN-RELIGION-PALM-SUNDAY

Vatican officials estimated some 25,000 people attended the Mass, held under a sunny, breezy spring sky.

Palm Sunday kicks off a busy week for Francis leading up to Easter Sunday when the faithful commemorate the resurrection of Christ. On Thursday, Francis is due to travel to a Rome women’s prison for the traditional washing of the feet ritual. On Friday he is scheduled to preside over the nighttime Way of the Cross procession at Rome’s Colosseum re-enacting Christ’s crucifixion.

The following day marks the Easter Vigil, during which Francis presides over a solemn nighttime service in the basilica, followed by Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square and his noontime blessing from the loggia above.

Off and on this winter, Francis has been battling what he and the Vatican have described as a case of the flu, bronchitis or a cold. For the last several weeks he has occasionally asked an aide to read aloud his speeches and catechism lessons to spare him the effort.

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Written by Paolo Sorrentino Directed by Paolo Sorrentino

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A scared little boy is welcomed to the orphanage by a young Sister Mary. She greets him with affection and instructs him to call her "Ma."

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Pope presides over Easter Vigil service after pulling out of Good Friday procession to protect his health

Pope Francis presides over the Easter vigil celebration. He has a vacant stare and looks like he's falling asleep.

Pope Francis has presided over an Easter Vigil service, a day after making the last-minute decision to skip his participation in the Good Friday procession at Rome's Colosseum to preserve his health.

Francis entered the darkened St Peter's Basilica in his wheelchair on Saturday, taking his place in a chair and offering an opening prayer.

Sounding somewhat congested and out of breath, he blessed an Easter candle, the flame of which was then shared with other candles until the whole basilica twinkled.

Pope Francis sits in a darkened room, looking at a candle being lit.

The evening service, one of the most solemn and important moments in the Catholic liturgical calendar, commemorates the resurrection of Jesus and includes the sacrament of baptism for eight adult converts.

The 87-year-old pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been battling what he and the Vatican have described as a case of the flu, bronchitis or a cold all winter long.

The Vatican previously said Francis skipped the Good Friday procession to ensure his participation in both the vigil service on Saturday night and Easter Sunday Mass a few hours later.

'Conserve his health'

On Friday, Francis had been expected to preside over the Via Crucis, or Way of the Cross, a procession intended to re-enact Jesus Christ's crucifixion.

But just as the event was about to begin, the Vatican announced the pope would instead be following the event from his home at the Vatican.

"To conserve his health in view of the vigil tomorrow and Mass on Easter Sunday, Pope Francis will follow the Via Crucis at the Colosseum this evening from the Casa Santa Marta," a statement from the Vatican press office said.

While Francis also skipped the event in 2023 because he was recovering from bronchitis and it was a particularly cold night, his decision to stay home this year suggested his plans had changed suddenly.

For several weeks he has occasionally asked an aide to read his speeches aloud, and he skipped his Palm Sunday homily altogether.

The decision to stay home appeared to have taken place at the very last minute: Francis's chair was in place on the platform outside the Colosseum where he was to preside over the rite.

His close aide, Monsignor Leonardo Sapienza, was on hand and moved the television screen around on the platform so Francis would have a better view of what was going on inside the Colosseum itself.

But at 9:10pm, five minutes before the official start of the procession, the Vatican press office announced on Telegram that he wouldn't attend, and the chair was quickly taken away.

Two men in black clothing carry a large white chair off a podium.

His absence was noted with concern but understanding among some of the estimated 25,000 pilgrims who packed the area for the torchlit procession.

"I think of course it causes concern for the people who make sure that he is doing well, but he must have his reasons for the decisions that he makes," said Marlene Steuber, who was visiting from Costa Rica.

"Still, I think that people are involved and very blessed and happy to be here and experience these events here in Rome."

Brian Hopp, a visitor from Chicago, noted that Francis had his health challenges this year.

"I definitely don't think it was a decision taken lightly. I think a lot was taken into it and I think he probably prioritised his health for Easter, which I think is a very responsible thing to do," Mr Hopp said.

"I know he has been going through a lot this year, so I don't expect him to be able to make every event."

Francis had appeared in good form earlier in the day for a Good Friday liturgy in St Peter's Basilica, though he remained mostly seated and it was not a particularly taxing event that required him to speak at length.

An elderly man in a red robe sits bowed in a wheelchair on a rich-looking floor.

On Thursday, he left the Vatican to preside over the Holy Thursday foot-washing ritual at a Rome women's prison.

While he performed the rite from his wheelchair, Francis appeared strong and engaged with the inmates, even giving a big chocolate Easter egg to one woman's young son.

On Saturday, he is scheduled to preside over a lengthy evening Easter Vigil in St Peter's, one of the most solemn events in the liturgical calendar.

He also is due to preside over Easter Sunday Mass in the piazza and deliver his "Urbi et Orbi" (To the City and the World) speech rounding up global crises and threats to humanity.

In addition to his respiratory problems, Francis had a chunk of his large intestine removed in 2021 and was hospitalised twice last year, including once to remove intestinal scar tissue from previous surgeries to address diverticulosis, or bulges in his intestinal wall.

He has been using a wheelchair and cane for over a year because of bad knee ligaments.

In his recently published memoirs, Life: My Story Through History, Francis said he wasn't suffering from any health problems that would require him to resign and that he still has "many projects to bring to fruition".

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Pope skips Good Friday event to preserve health ahead of Easter, Vatican says

Pope skips homily at start of busy Holy Week during Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square

1 . Episode 1

Pope presides over Easter Vigil service after pulling out of Good Friday procession to protect his health

'Conserve his health'

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