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.
They've found something wrong with me,
but they're not sure what it is.
Perhaps God has entered you.
The more than likely it's the devil.
Are you going to resign?
No, I'm not going to resign.
That only makes me feel worse.
You're never going to be pope, Michael. Get used to it.
I'm the Pope and I'm going to remain pope until the day I die.
Because I'm curious to see how it all turns out.
You don't believe in God.
- What did you say? - I said you don't believe in God.
I was fifty years old myself once, you know?
I had my own crisis of faith.
Like all priests.
The second calling is more challenging,
and more fraught than the first.
You no longer have to deal with the enthusiastic of youth,
now you must grapple with disenchantment
and the limitations of the rational.
You don't believe in God but that shouldn't upset you.
Even though you're a pope.
There's still another path that'll allow you
to find the people and things you are looking for,
even if you can't see it now...
because all you can see before you now
are your own doubts and the darkness.
Please, show me this other path, I beg you.
If I show it to you, then the adventure is over.
Don't you see, Lenny?
Your life, your Papacy, is an unforgettable adventure?
You truly are my spiritual father,
the best a priest could hope to have.
Michael, what must I do to restore the Church's fate?
Go to Venice and bury two empty coffins.
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto,
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
Requiescant in pace.
Dominus vobiscum, Sit nomen Domini benedictum.
Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.
Benedicat vos ompipotens Deus:
Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus.
Now...
next Sunday...
we won't see each other, my dear, devoted faithful.
I have to take a trip.
I've decided to visit Africa.
To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary
of the foundation of Sister Antonia's
first village of goodness.
I know! I know you wanted him, not me.
- When will he come out? - I'll tell you right away,
so you can get it out of your mind: he's not coming out.
What does that mean: he's not coming out?
In that case, why are we bothering to all travel together
- on the same flight? - To feel he's closer.
Sofie, you know perfectly well that this bullshit won't sell anymore.
Boys, what can I tell you? He's not coming out.
That's the official version. Then, I, I couldn't say...
Anything could happen,
one thing Pius XIII certainly doesn't lack is unpredictability.
Take this trip... in two hours he told us: we're going.
And we put the whole thing together at the speed of light.
But I'm going to ask him a really important question.
- Not right now, you're not. - But why won't he come out?
- What is he doing? - He's praying.
And we're praying, too: that he'll talk to us.
We have been praying for months now.
So what prayer is he praying?
My dear boy, I still can't read the Holy Father's mind.
Well, he's not praying aloud. With this pope, that constitutes news.
I have an important question to ask him.
I understand, Jennifer, but he's not coming out.
Prince Abadi has prepared the stadium
for the Pope's public speech. Will he go?
Will he allow himself to be seen in public for the first time?
He said he will. In any case, I'll keep you informed. Ok?
Sofie, when am I'm gonna be able to ask my question?
I don't know, Jennifer.
Holy Father, reliable sources say that the Kurtwell investigation
is at a standstill.
They say that you've sent a man with no experience
to conduct that investigation
because you don't actually want to investigate.
And there's a very specific reason for that:
Kurtwell is blackmailing you.
Is that true, Holy Father?
And what is Kurtwell blackmailing you about?
What does Kurtwell know about you that we don't?
Stay where you are! Nobody move! Stay where you are!
Stay where you are! Nobody move!
Stay where you are! Don't move!
Don't move! Stay where you are!
Eminence, what a pleasure to see you after all these years.
- The pleasure is all mine, Mother Antonia. - The Holy Father?
He'll get out as soon as you hand over your phone.
Are you joking, Eminence? I want a picture with the Pope.
We're not joking, and there won't be any picture with the Pope.
- So what shall we do? - Do you think I went to all this trouble
to not even get a picture with the Pope?
It's out of the question.
Mother, the Holy Father is waiting there in the car.
This isn't fair, and it's not equal treatment.
Is it plausible to expect equal treatment with the Pope?
I don't like the attitude of Pius XIII toward a woman like me
who's given so much to the Church.
Mother, don't forget the law of reciprocity.
The Holy Father might dislike your attitude too.
Now try to make a small effort of peering into the future.
Who would have the worst of it in this contest?
I have influential philanthropist friends all over the world.
While the Pope doesn't even have one friend.
And yet it would take him just 20 minutes
to shut down all 250 Villages of Goodness.
And believe me, I've come to know him very well.
If he wants to do it, he'll do it.
Now be a good girl and give me your phone.
And one more thing.
A little gift from the Pope.
Take one.
Wait. No. Better take two.
Let's go!
This is our church.
Next to it is the dormitory,
the health care clinic,
the dental clinic, the elementary school,
the catechism school,
the cafeteria, and the administrative offices.
Enough, enough.
Enough.
Enough, enough.
Enough.
Ni mara ngapi mimi aliiambia!
Huna kutumia maji, siyo nzuri kwa ajili ya afya!
Not all that glitters is gold.
That water is dangerous.
It can cause fluorosis, anemia,
joint pains, dental disease, and kidney failure.
The main problem afflicting this area has to do with
a supply of safe, clean drinking water.
Our benefactors send us huge quantities of clean water,
but the bureaucracy, the soldiers, and the gangs hijack it illegally,
and keep it for themselves.
This is a very ingenious system designed by a Dutch company,
which donated it to us.
The water condenses on the glass and then drips into containers.
There are times when we manage to collect
as much as three liters a day.
- Would you like some water to drink, Your Holiness? - No thanks.
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
I met this famous American author.
What a tempter!
He said he remembered only the perverse
and lustful details of women.
Now I can't seem to do anything but remember my own
very few details of that nature.
You might say to me: which ones?
When I met that girl in California on the beach,
more than thirty years ago.
She told me:
"You can touch my legs".
It's become an obsessive, very unhealthy thought.
Also, even though it was in good faith,
I never even realized I was doing it, I must have sinned with Esther,
Peter, and little Pius.
They left the Vatican, without saying goodbye to me.
Just vanished.
Now I can't seem to sleep at night,
because I'm thinking about the photo that they left behind,
a photo I thought mattered to them:
a photo of me holding little Pius in my arms.
At times like this,
I feel guilty, because I should be thinking about my only true friend:
Andrew Dussolier...
dead because of me,
and yet I've already stopped feeling guilty about it.
This enormous burden swept away by a tiny morsel of guilt.
How strange the human soul can be, isn't that true, Father?
Finally, Father, the world!
Pity, compassion...
forgiveness...
all this Christian virtues the world no longer attributes to me.
Can they be right?
Am I cruel?
All I know is everything I do, I do for the love of God.
And that's all.
My penitence, Father?
Do you speak English?
You couldn't have told me before?
You've just letting me rattle on like an idiot
for the past ten minutes!
"Sister Antonia hides the water.
And she uses it to control the sick and the nuns.
In exchange for a few glasses of water she demands favors,
obscene acts, and filth I could never repeat.
I beg you, please, Father, only you can help us."
Accipite et bibite ex eo omnes.
Haec quotiescumque feceritis, in mei memoriam facietis.
I have to tell you something, Holy Father.
Your Eminence, I don't wanna hear any more bad news.
You might not believe it,
but for the first time I have a piece of good news to give you.
Let's hear it, then.
The simple fact that you have announced your first pastoral visit
and the prospect of your first public appearance
have resulted in a 12% increase in the number of requests
to take part in your next mass at St. Peter's.
The morbid curiosity prompted by absence.
Your Eminence, as an orphan, I'm very familiar with this.
Holy Father, will you appear here, in Africa, for the first time?
You once asked me who I really am.
- Do you remember that? - Certainly.
I'm just a man.
- That's the answer. - That's not all.
Your Holiness, you are the Church.
How wonderful!
And to think that there are still people who believe
that God doesn't exist.
What was that American journalist on the plane referring to?
Oh, probably just one of the many slanders
making the rounds about the Holy Father.
Kurtwell and Belardo know each other
because they both worked in New York, and that's all.
Oh I...
- Forgive me. - No.
The civil war in this country,
practically speaking, has never stopped.
It's hard to even come up with an estimate of the number of dead.
The arrival of the Holy Father has been particularly useful
because it at least forced the sides to call a truce.
My fear is that, as soon as His Holiness leaves this land of ours,
the warring bands will go back to slaughtering each other
just like before.
Prince Abadi is a good man.
He's a great philanthropist, generous with us,
and he does what he can to halt the violence,
but without international aid the task is daunting.
I'd use my words with care, Mother Antonia.
The U.N. denounces Abadi
as a ferocious torturer and old-school dictator,
that's why there has been no international aid.
Your Eminence, I've been in this place for many years.
Prince Abadi is a good man.
The United Nations has been in this place for some time, too.
Prince Abadi is a good man.
The question here is: what exactly does it mean to be a good person?
Let's take you for instance Sister Antonia: are you a good person?
- I believe I am. - Don't be in such a hurry.
Think carefully.
I try to live in accordance with Christian values.
Which ones?
You can use Christian values for all kinds of purposes.
A good person is somebody who puts himself last,
who renounces his own temptations and needs,
working only for the interests of others.
Now think carefully and answer sincerely,
because I won't put up with even the tiniest lie from you:
are you a good person?
There seems to be a some kind of misunderstanding
concerning the meaning of my visit here to you.
You think I'm here to honor you.
In fact, I'm here to ascertain your temptations.
Heal yourself, Sister Antonia.
Halitosis is a deformation of the soul.
Water problem.
Ladies and gentlemen, His Holiness Pius XIII.
This is the vicar of Christ,
Pope Pius XIII, speaking to you now.
Brothers and sisters, I want to be perfectly clear with you.
I have visited your country and I have seen dead bodies
lying on the ground,
hunger, blood, thirst, and poverty.
All these things are the offspring of the war and violence
that has clutched your land for twelve years now.
I won't say the names of those who are guilty in this.
There are too many of them.
We are all guilty.
We are all guilty of war and death.
Always.
In the same way, we can all be guilty of peace.
Always.
I ask this of you on bended knee.
I am ready to die for you, if only you will become guilty of peace.
I always say to the children who write me from all over the world:
think about all the things you like.
That is God.
Children like all sorts of things,
but none of them has ever written that what they like is war.
Now look at whoever is next to you.
Look at them with eyes of joy and remember
what St. Augustine said:
"If you want to see God, you have the means to do it.
God is love."
I, on the other hand,
won't speak to you about God until there is peace.
Because God is peace.
And peace is God.
Give me peace,
and I'll give you God.
You don't know how wonderful peace is.
You have no idea how disconcerting peace can be.
But I know.
Because I saw it when I was eight years old
on the banks of a river in Colorado... peace.
It was beautiful.
Yeah, I know.
Those dancers gave a wonderful performance.
No, Holy Father, I'm talking about your speech.
It was beautiful.
Holy Father, weather conditions in Rome are critical.
We're going to have to land in Naples.
I would never dare to contradict you.
Naples it is.
- May I touch? - No!
I need to stop at the next gas station.
Certainly, Your Holiness.
O Lord...
let us look each other right in the eyes,
we can no longer put off this matter.
We now need to speak about Sister Antonia.
Blessed Virgin!
Maria...
Maria.