The Young Pope

Lord Almighty,

now that You have our beloved Dussolier in Your arms,

I pray to You,

remind him of that afternoon

when we ran away together from the orphanage.

Remind him of the fear and freedom we felt on that rainy afternoon.

And reassure him, there's nothing wrong,

freedom and fear are always together,

like an old married couple, each willing to die for the other.

Remind him of Sister Mary at age twenty,

her hair flowing and blonde

and drenched in sunlight as she ran and sank baskets.

Remind him of that indelible, archaic picture of beauty

that so stirred us, in silence.

Now I know very well

that neither he nor I will ever forget that picture.

Remind him, Lord Almighty, of all our endless

late-night conversations, in that big one-room dormitory,

under the blankets,

how we whispered in secret about our one and only,

inexhaustible topic of discussion:

our future.

We were children then, and that's what children do:

they paint the future in colors that reality can never know.

Remind him not to grieve over all our shattered dreams.

We wanted to live the lives of the great baseball player,

the elderly gas station attendant on the county road,

the heroic soldier, the lowlife New York musician,

the fireman, the blue-water sailor.

Remind him not to weep

when he remembers that instead we lived only the simple,

drab life of the priest, such a strange life,

a life of hope and prayer that You,

Lord Almighty,

really do exist and might think about us.

Amen.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei.

Where do they go, the airplanes we never take?

I always wonder the same thing, every time I see one.

I always think that they go to places I've never been.

They go somewhere else.

Tell me about the Blessed Juana.

She is revered in Guatemala and across all Central America.

She died at the age of eighteen and,

of leukemia and on her deathbed, she said:

"All the world will be infatuated with me because...

all my life I have been infatuated with the world."

What did the Blessed Juana do to deserve canonization?

Well, she cared for sick children in the hospitals and,

in order to alleviate their suffering,

she would tell them fairytales

that she thought up herself, very amusing ones, apparently,

and always with the same protagonist, the Madonna.

I like this, go on.

But these fairytales gave more than a smile to the sick children.

Many of these children,

just a few days after listening to Juana's fairytales,

recovered from terminal illnesses.

And they recovered with a smile on their face.

All of the cured children,

when they were asked whether they had any idea of why

they felt better and were healed, gave the same answer:

"The Madonna made us laugh".

That's a wonderful story, Your Eminence.

Yes, Holy Father, it's a wonderful story.

Beautiful...

if only it were true.

But Holy Father, it is true.

All right, let me think about it. I'll let you know my answer soon.

Tell me about your calling.

Holy Father, the announcement of your orders

making abortion unforgivable has unleashed the Femen

and they're protesting everywhere.

Beneath the Eiffel Tower, in the European parliament,

even in St. Peter's Square.

I don't want to talk about people who strip naked

in order to protest against something.

The death of Andrew...

you weren't to blame.

Oh, yes I was.

Valente.

Holy Father.

I am so tired.

Here I am, Holy Father.

Make yourself comfortable.

- Did you have a good trip? - Oh, I just love helicopters.

They make me feel like I'm having an adventure.

Young people like you love adventures.

Holy Father, may I remind you that we're the same age?

We used to be the same age.

I was so surprised and happy to hear that you wanted to see me.

I too was surprised to learn that I needed to see you.

Oh, not wanted, but needed.

Weigh your words carefully, Holy Father.

I'm really tired, you know that?

If you will allow me, Holy Father, you're not tired.

You're grieving and struggling with guilt

over the death of your closest friend, Cardinal Dussolier.

What did you want to talk to me about, Holy Father?

What are we doing wrong?

Oh, it's very simple.

We've failed to follow the eternal, unchanging principle

of the carrot and the stick.

The carrot and the stick.

We brought the stick but forgot the carrot.

What do you mean by carrot?

An opening.

What do you mean by an opening?

A speech about love and a pastoral voyage.

I don't like to travel and you know perfectly well

that I don't like to be seen.

I never said that you have to let yourself be seen.

As for traveling: everyone dislikes traveling

until they actually go on a trip.

Then they like it, don't they?

Where are you thinking of dragging me?

To Africa.

To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the foundation

of Sister Antonia's first village of goodness.

The first of the 250 villages of goodness.

The largest multinational of charity.

Sister Antonia calls my office an average of fourteen times a day

to repeat her invitation.

She'd gladly saw off one of her arms to get you to come.

Well, you just tell her to get to sawing,

and then I'll be around sooner or later.

So what do you say?

I'm not particularly fond of Sister Antonia and what's more,

several cardinals have told me

she has a close and friendly relationship with halitosis.

No.

This doesn't strike me as the right idea

to settle the problems we have.

As you wish, Holy Father.

What I really wish is to go back to Rome.

I'm not a man who's comfortable on vacation.

All intelligent men are uncomfortable on vacation.

By the way, something that may possibly cheer you up:

Elmore Coen, your favorite author, is on vacation in Rome.

He stated in an interview with the press that he'd like to meet you.

Might that be of interest to you?

I've always wanted to meet Elmore Coen.

What became...

of the roller-skating children?

I've loved all your books, Mr. Coen.

It's an immense honor for me to meet you.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Your Holiness.

After all, you're the Pope.

I had heard that you wanted to meet me too.

How could I not?!

You are the most mysterious man

of these first few decades of the century.

What writer wouldn't want to meet you?

You writers are all so obsessed with mystery.

You men of the cloth. Don't kid around, either.

Writers and men of the cloth are the same in that way.

They can't afford to solve the mystery,

because the next day they'd become irrelevant.

Writing is the one way I've found

of concealing my boundless ignorance.

It's a fraud, really,

the way of gaining acceptance from the world

and especially from women,

who are my one and only real interest.

Oh, forgive me, I've been inappropriate.

Not at all.

Laymen always think we priests are scandalized

by even the slightest things,

whereas the truth is the exact opposite.

We are never scandalized,

no profession has to deal with sin on such a continual basis as ours.

The confessional is our operating room.

Just as surgeons have no fear of blood,

so we priests are no longer afraid of scandal and sin.

So how do you survive without women?

An easy answer.

The foolish ones go with women on the sly.

The wise ones long ago understood the degree to which sex,

as a source of pleasure, has overvalued in our society.

Your Holiness, with a few words you have just razed to the ground

three quarters of my literary production.

I've almost always written about sex

as the motor that drives the world.

And you were right. But you don't write about motors that purr,

you write about motors that break down continuously.

And they should have given you a Nobel Prize for it, 20 years ago.

Ah, it's true.

Unfortunately, they've gotten into the habit

of giving it only to those who don't want it.

Have you ever had a girlfriend, Your Holiness?

Certainly!

I've only have had one and I remember everything about her.

Whereas you, Mr. Coen, have probably had thousands

and don't remember a thing about them.

I only remember certain perverse and lustful details.

If you remember those,

that's probably because we're continuing lecturing you

about how wrong it is to remember them.

How do you feel?

Sick.