LENNY BELARDO: Sister Mary will be my special assistant.
SISTER MARY: Your parents left you because they had to go to Venice.
Your enormous sufferings must take a back seat.
BELARDO: Tell me about the blessed one.
CARDINAL DUSSOLIER: She cared for sick children in the hospitals.
Many of these children, just a few days after
listening to Juana's fairytales, recovered from terminal illness.
CARDINAL VIOELLO: The Kurtwell case...
The charges of a child abuse are detailed and embarrassing.
BELARDO: You're about to set off
on a challenging mission to America.
CARDINAL GUTIERREZ: I have orders to accompany you to the Vatican
where you will be given a fair trial.
You don't have any solid evidence.
GUTIERREZ: David, is Kurtwell your father?
Yes.
[TV static drones]
[bright tone]
[radio static, channels warping]
[male newscaster speaking Italian]
[contemplative piano music]
♪ ♪
[instrumental rock version of "All Along the Watchtower"]
♪ ♪
[clock ticking]
- [breathes deeply]
[dramatic didgeridoo tones]
[choir vocalizing]
[rapid Russian folk music]
♪ ♪
[choir singing in Russian]
- ♪ Hey! ♪
- Holy Father.
You accorded an audience
to the head of the Vatican press office.
She's outside waiting.
- [sighs]
[rapid Russian folk music]
[choir singing in Russian]
♪ ♪
- ♪ Hey! ♪
[music stops]
- Are you sure?
Ah.
[laughs]
Holy Father, the Italian prime minister
is continuing to postpone legislation
on taxing the Vatican and civil unions.
His left-wing supporters are calling for blood.
Many of them claim that you are behind this,
that you are the man who changed the prime minister's mind.
And I think the same thing.
- That might be the case.
- How did you do it?
- I humiliated him.
You have no idea how many objectives can be obtained
by humiliating one's fellow man.
But there's a secret to it. - What is it?
- A person humiliated can't realize they've been humiliated.
- If you don't mind my saying so, you're diabolical.
- You think?
People that know me well actually say that I'm a saint.
- How did it go with the patriarch of Moscow?
- [exhales]
The patriarch of Moscow is more boring
than watching golf on television.
- [laughs]
So what is our next set of decisions?
Do you remember that on Wednesday, you promised
to act as a tour guide in the Vatican Museums
for a third grade field trip?
- [groans]
God Almighty, what atrocity can I have committed
to deserve that?
I don't know if I'll be able to make that appointment.
On Wednesday, I have to watch golf on TV.
- Holy Father,
you don't want to disappoint the children, do you?
- Ma'am, it's the children who've disappointed me.
- Didn't you like your childhood?
- [sighs]
All I remember of my childhood
is that one day, it wasn't there anymore.
[Belle & Sebastian's "Ever Had A Little Faith?"]
- ♪ With your headphones on ♪
♪ Through the drizzled pane ♪
♪ Of a wet slate roof ♪
♪ Sun will turn to rain ♪
♪ Why are you the one ♪
♪ Couldn't take the pain ♪
♪ Something good will happen ♪
♪ Wait and see ♪
♪ Something good will happen ♪
♪ Wait and see ♪
♪ Ever had a little faith ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Ever had a little faith ♪
♪ ♪
[music stops]
- Clothespin.
Have we found any confirmation
of David Tanistone's statements?
- I would say so.
His mother had a brief affair with Archbishop Kurtwell
when they were both attending Catholic University
in Washington, D.C.
Then they drifted apart.
She, like the devout Catholic that she is,
decided to give birth to her son.
After a few years
and oppressed by the grim economic straits
into which she had drifted,
she decided to turn to Kurtwell for help.
- Which is how Kurtwell came to know him.
- But in the meanwhile, a veritable earthquake
had devastated that man's personality.
And the rubble from it collapsed directly onto that young man.
For the rest of the story, we'll have to ask Kurtwell.
- I intend to shake things up a little.
I would like to have you become my personal secretary.
Sister Mary has completed her mission.
Now, justifiably,
she wants to move on.
- She's completed her mission? - Yes.
The child Pope has become a man.
He once needed a motherly presence,
and he now needs a colleague.
What do you think of my proposal?
- That I can't accept.
- Why not?
- Because it would be hypocritical.
[reflective guitar music]
♪ ♪
- What's hypocritical about it?
- I'm a hom--
I'm a homosexual, Holy Father.
♪ ♪
And you want to expel all homosexuals from the Church.
- Every rule has its exceptions.
- But I don't subscribe to the exception
that you'd make for me.
I don't subscribe to the rule.
It's a huge mistake not to accept homosexuals.
It's a huge mistake to compare them with pedophiles,
the way you do.
An unacceptable generalization.
How can you fail to see,
you, of all people, Holy Father, you,
the author of those heartbreaking love letters,
that in pedophilia, there is only violence
and in homosexuality, there is only love?
- You say you don't want to be my personal secretary,
but, in actual fact, you're already doing the job.
You offer me some advice.
That's what a personal secretary does.
- But in this case,
I don't just want to give the advice.
I want you to accept it.
- How many things I accept, Gutierrez,
and no one notices!
That's a Pope's fate. That's the fate of power.
Try to reason with me.
If I ask you to be my personal secretary,
am I not already revising my own beliefs about homosexuality?
Or do you actually believe
I knew nothing about your homosexuality
or the fact that you were sexually abused as a child?
I knew that too.
That's why I sent you to Kurtwell.
That's why I now want you working by my side.
Because we need to work on the future.
You need the right motivations to do that,
and you have those.
The right motivations can move the world.
♪ ♪
You changed
since you came back from your trip.
- In what way have I changed?
- You transformed fear into anger.
Very good, Gutierrez.
Very good.
[coffee cup rattling]
[rosary jangling]
[dark tones]
[mild piano music]
♪ ♪
[music stops]
I beg of you,
confide in me
the wisest thing you have ever learned.
- In the end, more than in God,
it is necessary to believe in yourself, Lenny.
- Ah.
Have you got something...
a little better?
That's a banal platitude.
- [chuckles] If only you knew
how true a banal platitude can be,
my dear colleague.
After all, look at us.
We are power,
and power is a banal platitude.
[church bells tolling]
- We will be dealing with you one day, Your Holiness.
- What do you mean?
- You are going to be a saint. I'm perfectly serious.
- I don't need any more steps in my career.
- Your prayers, Holy Father...
your prayers move God.
- Oh?
When?
- Let's stick to the facts
and skip the memorable account of what you did at age 14
in the room of the gravely sick wife of the custodian
who was suddenly cured.
Now, then, here are the simple facts.
Esther and Peter were infertile, sterile, barren.
The young woman confided in you.
And you, Holy Father,
you didn't tell her what anyone else would have said:
go see a doctor.
No, instead, Your Holiness prayed,
and Esther became pregnant,
and she gave birth to a beautiful child.
Moreover, it became clear that Sister Antonia
was actually an unworthy woman, an evildoer.
You had the power to remove her from her position.
You had the power to punish her.
All you had to do was to sign a document,
but instead you chose not to do that.
Instead you chose to pray in the rain,
kneeling on the asphalt at a rest stop on a highway,
and at that moment,
Sister Antonia shuffled off the stage
thanks to a divine punishment.
Now, these are the things that saints do.
They are moved by a faith so solid
that they believe in God,
in the power of God,
before they believe in the power of human beings.
As you see, Holy Father,
miracles are more likely to happen.
We only need to keep our ears open.
- Are your ear's always open for the Blessed Juana?
- Always.
[dramatic orchestral music]
♪ ♪
When she was 15,
she went to see the children at the hospital
and always brought tangerines with her.
And she didn't care whether they ate them or not.
But she wanted them to peel them
and to play at squeezing the peels
and spraying each other with the bright
and unforgettable scent of the fruit.
Then she told the children,
"I will go away from you, and you will go away from me,
"but it doesn't matter,
"because all that will be left on this Earth
is the scent of goodness."
- I could listen for hours.
This story tells us something important.
- What?
- That goodness,
unless combined with imagination,
runs the risk of being mere exhibitionism.
- Hmm, how true. How true.
♪ ♪
Well, if you want to know everything
about the blessed Juana,
there's a wonderful opportunity that we can take advantage of.
You see, every Christmas, the miracle children,
who are now in their 50s,
gather at a plaza in Guatemala City
and tell the story of the miracle cures.
I've attended, and it was a very moving
and unforgettable experience.
I mean, everyone would be overjoyed to have you there.
- Are you suggesting I spend my Christmas in Guatemala?
- Yes. It would be a memorable gesture.
- All right, then. We'll go to Guatemala.
On the understanding that it will be
a small and private get-together
without crowds and without press.
Just us and the miracle children.
- It will be exactly as you wish.
[laughs]
- All right, children,
today we are going on a tour of the Vatican Museums,
and I am gonna be your tour guide.
[applause]
[thunder booming]
Oh.
Earlier it was snowing,
and now it's raining.
Too bad.
Snow is so much nicer than rain, isn't it?
children: Yes!
- But if it's raining,
that can only mean you've been bad children.
- Why?
Because raindrops are the tears of Christ!
And if Jesus is crying,
that can only mean you've made Him angry.
[children crying]
What?
Hey, I was just kidding.
Have a sense of humor, for Pete's sake.
- All right, children. Here's what we'll do.
Right now, we are all going to eat hamburgers and French fries,
and after lunch, we'll continue our tour of the museums.
Follow me.
- Aren't you gonna eat hamburgers and French fries?
- My mommy wants me to stick to the Mediterranean diet.
- I understand.
- I don't want a mommy with a beard.
- You need to learn to settle for what you get.
- I don't want to settle.
- You're right.
I don't want to settle anymore either.
[somber string music]
♪ ♪
[both speaking Spanish]
[indistinct chatter]
[xylophone tinkling]
♪ ♪
[smooth rock music]
- Accipe anulum de manu Petri
et noveris dilectione Principis Apostolorum
dilectionem tuam erga Ecclesiam roborari.
- [crying]
♪ ♪
[crying]
[xylophone tinkling]
[music stops]
- [praying indistinctly]
Amen.
- What happened to your hands, Your Eminence?
- Oh, Holy Father.
The cold in Alaska, when I say Mass in the open air.
- Haven't you tried using skin creams?
- I am allergic.
And then there is the rheumatism.
- These look like the hands of Christ on the cross.
- God bless you, Holy Father.
[crying]
I can't even hold a glass anymore.
[sobbing]
[inquisitive flute music]
- [giggling]
♪ ♪
[children laughing]
[children laughing and shouting]
♪ ♪
[children laughing and shouting]
[dark music]
♪ ♪
[shower running]
[dramatic percussive tones]
- That man's name was Jack Walser.
♪ ♪
He was the superintendent of the building
where we lived...
Before the Lord called me to Him.
He had divided the tenants into two categories:
the "natives" and the "nomads."
My family belonged to the category of the nomads,
because we didn't have enough money
to ensure the stability enjoyed by the natives.
One day, Jack rang our doorbell at 10:00 in the morning,
confident that I would be at school.
But that day,
I was still at home, in bed with a fever.
And the door to my room was open,
and he stretched out on a little sofa
where my father sat when he listened to the radio.
He drenched it... [labored breathing]
With his wet clothes.
And he--he told me
that the party was over for us nomads,
that the owners had decided to double the rent.
And he said it as if he had something good,
something fragrant in his mouth.
And then he gestured for me to come closer.
And he said to me,
in a tone of voice I'd never heard in my life,
he said, "On your knees."
At last...
he said the most vulgar phrase
I've ever heard in my life.
He said, "There are only two reasons a human being
"would get down on his knees.
"And one is to pray,
and the other is to know himself."
[crying]
I was only 12 years old, Holy Father.
I was 12 years old!
[somber music]
♪ ♪
- You need to continue, Archbishop.
Your story isn't finished yet.
- [exhales heavily]
What--what else do you want to know?
- What happened afterward?
♪ ♪
- Oh, you want to know whether or not I, as an adult,
became like Jack Walser.
Certainly, that's all you care about.
What do you care about a 12-year-old boy
on his knees in front of a man in wet clothing
on a chilly day in February in 1955?
- We care, Archbishop,
about all children.
All of them.
- [crying softly]
- Fine.
Let's...get on with it.
Yes, Holy Father.
For the rest of my life,
I have behaved like Jack Walser.
[sighs] Can that be enough?
- Come here, Archbishop.
I've made my decision.
I'm sending you back to the United States.
- [gasps]
- Where do you want to go?
- To New York. I want to go home.
- Fine.
- Holy Father, infinite is your compassion.
Infinite is your capacity for forgiveness.
- I have one simple request.
- Anything, Your Holiness.
- I want to make sure
you really do want to go home.
So I want you to plant your finger on New York
on the globe.
[somber violin music]
♪ ♪
Ketchikan, Alaska.
I know the place.
Very nice.
Small town of 8,000 inhabitants
that's so cold, it'll split your fingers.
But in the words of the Nobel Laureate Brodsky,
"Beauty at low temperatures is beauty."
Archbishop Kurtwell,
your disease has deceived you.
♪ ♪
- [sighs]
[lighter clicks]
- There's a rumor going around
that I'm about to leave the Vatican.
- You have to admit that the rumors
that circulate in the Vatican
almost always correspond to the truth.
- Where will I go?
- Where you've always wanted to be.
With children.
You're an orphan.
Orphans want to stay with children forever.
- How do you know I'm an orphan?
- I've always known.
- How do you know?
- It's difficult...
For a saint to answer all the questions of humanity.
- Can I start calling you Lenny again?
[bright guitar music]
- Only if I can call you Ma.
- Yes. You can call me Ma.
But where will I go?
- To Africa.
To take Sister Antonia's place.
And there you'll be in charge of all 250 Villages of Goodness.
- I'd like to open new ones, just for the children.
What do you think?
- I think it's a good idea.
In the end, we all have to go back to where we began.
- And you?
When will you go back to where you began?
- Where did I begin?
- You began with two hippie parents.
- I've stopped searching for my parents.
I've stopped searching for God.
- Never say that again.
The truth is, you've never searched.
You've been hiding yourself.
[sighs]
When do you want me to leave?
- Tomorrow morning.
Before you go, if you'd like,
you can say good-bye to the Cardinal Secretary of State.
- So long, saint.
- So long, Ma.
[Andrew Bird's "Pulaski At Night"]
- ♪ Half empty, half full ♪
♪ Cup runneth over ♪
♪ Horns of plenty ♪
♪ Coffers full ♪
♪ We're starting over ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Half empty, half full ♪
♪ Cup runneth over ♪
♪ Horns of plenty ♪
♪ Coffers full ♪
♪ We're starting over ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ We're starting over ♪
[music stops]
- Ahh... - Your Holiness!
Don't you feel well?
- [pained breathing] No, no.
It's just a passing... discomfort.
- Should I get a doctor? - No, no, no.
It's not serious. It's over.
[breathing deeply]
- Are you certain you don't want me to call the doctor?
- All better now.
Do you believe in God?
- [sighs]
I...
Yes, I do.
- I don't.
Those who believe in God don't believe in anything.
[melancholy guitar music]
- [speaking Italian]
- [groans]
- [moans]
- [praying indistinctly]
You know, you were right.
When an orphan matures,
he may discover a fresh youth within.
- And at that point, he will have something to say.
You have something to say.
I know it,
I feel it,
and you will say it.
Your Holiness, you will say it.
You'll say it.
You--you'll say it.
You'll say it. You'll say it.
You'll say it. You'll say it. [rapid percussive tones]
You'll say it. You'll say it. You'll say it. You'll say it.
You'll say it.
- You have a very tight family, Eminence.
Very affectionate.
It's been a lovely Christmas Eve.
- May I be indiscreet, Your Holiness,
and say something that concerns you personally?
- You may.
- Your parents abandoned you when you were a child.
Nothing so strange about that.
One might feel constrained to abandon a child
for all sorts of reasons.
There is no evidence to suggest they are dead.
You've become one of the most famous people on the planet,
but they do not get in touch with you.
"Why?" I asked myself.
A guilty conscience, perhaps?
But the prospect of a reconciliation should be
more powerful than any sense of guilt.
- So what explanation did you come up with, then?
- A very simple one.
They were hippies.
Presumably they hold the same libertarian
and progressive opinions today as they had then.
And you become the worldwide champion of ideas
that run completely counter to theirs.
- So you're saying the reason they didn't reach out to me
is a difference in political opinion?
- I am saying that whoever had the courage
to abandon a child
might also find the strength
to repudiate him.
[melancholy piano music]
♪ ♪
- Holy Father, the plane is on the tarmac waiting for us.
Whenever you like, it's all ready.
- We aren't going to Guatemala after all.
- The miracle people of the Blessed Juana
will be so disappointed.
- Yes, they will.
But in time, they'll understand.
♪ ♪
- All I ever wanted when I was a child
was to be a cardinal.
What about you, Holy Father?
What did you want to be when you were a child?
- I wanted to be a child.
- And now where is God?
- In Venice.
- In Venice?
And where does He live there?
- That's something I have to find out.
[Saint Saviour's "I Remember"]
- ♪ I remember when we were skin and bone ♪
♪ Tough and cruel ♪
♪ But bruises brown ♪
♪ And fade away ♪
♪ Trinkets in a coat pocket stolen from kids at school ♪
- Scusi, scusi.
Prego, scusi, signora, signore.
Prego, grazie, grazie. Scusi.
- ♪ And fed a shame ♪
♪ Someone should have told you ♪
♪ That you'd always have a place to go ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ I thought you would have known ♪
♪ Someone should have told you... ♪
- Holy Father.
I got you...
something stupid.
It has no real worth, but...
I saw it, and I thought of you.
♪ ♪
- ♪ I remember when we would hang about in hollow trees ♪
♪ New sounds ♪
- Says here
you can see for more than 100 meters.
♪ ♪
- ♪ Walking past boarded-up windows... ♪
- Holy Father,
the manager of the restaurant and all the staff
wonder if you'd be willing to give a benediction.
They are all behind you waiting.
If you were to turn around, for them,
it would be something of a minor miracle.
♪ ♪
- ♪ Someone should have told you ♪
♪ That you'd never find yourself alone ♪
♪ Oh-oh ♪
- No.
That would be an exhibition.
- ♪ Or maybe you climbed out after all ♪
♪ ♪
♪ I didn't wait around to see you fall ♪
♪ ♪
♪ You must have known it ♪
[music stops]
[slow footsteps approaching]
- [laughs]
[gentle instrumental music]
♪ ♪
When they asked her,
"Who is God?"
♪ ♪
"God is a line that opens,"
replied the Blessed Juana.
She was just 14 years old.
♪ ♪
And no one understood
what it was she was trying to say.
And then...
all the children asked the dying Blessed Juana
dozens of questions.
"Are we dead or are we alive?"
♪ ♪
"Are we tired or are we vigorous?"
♪ ♪
"Are we healthy or are we sick?"
♪ ♪
"Are we good or are we bad?"
♪ ♪
"Do we still have time or has it run out?"
♪ ♪
"Are we young or are we old?"
♪ ♪
"Are we clean or are we dirty?"
♪ ♪
"Are we fools or are we smart?"
♪ ♪
"Are we true or are we false?"
♪ ♪
"Are we rich or are we poor?"
♪ ♪
"Are we kings or are we servants?"
♪ ♪
"Are we good or are we beautiful?"
♪ ♪
"Are we warm or are we cold?"
♪ ♪
"Are we happy or are we blind?"
♪ ♪
"Are we disappointed or are we joyful?"
♪ ♪
"Are we lost or are we found?"
♪ ♪
"Are we men or are we women?"
♪ ♪
"It doesn't matter,"
replied the Blessed Juana
as she lay dying
at the age of just 18.
And she added,
on the verge of death,
with tears in her eyes...
"God does not allow Himself to be seen.
"God does not shout.
"God does not whisper.
"God does not write.
"God does not hear.
"God does not chat.
God does not comfort us."
And all the children asked her,
"Who is God?"
[crying softly]
And Juana replied...
"God smiles."
And only then did everyone understand.
[cheers and applause]
And now...
I beg all of you, smile.
Smile.
[cheers and applause]
That's right. Smile.
[bell tolling]
♪ ♪
[crying softly]
[dramatic string music]
♪ ♪
[microphone feedback squeals]
[groaning, hissing in pain]
Ahh.
It's nothing. It's nothing.
♪ ♪
One day, I will die.
And I will finally...
be able to embrace you all.
One by one.
[laughs]
[sighs] Yes.
I will.
I have faith that I will.
♪ ♪
[groans]
- Get a doctor.
- [labored breathing]
[wheezing]
♪ ♪
[exhales deeply]
♪ ♪
[bright tone]
How will you leave?
(LAUGHS)
Through there.
(DISTANT CARS HONKING)
They're gonna have to tear out the wall,
turn it all into one gigantic window,
and out I'll go...
dangling in midair.
(DISTANT SIRENS)
It'll be a spectacular sight.
PAOLO SORRENTINO: I thought it was interesting
after eight episodes inside the Vatican
to go outside,
to have another main character, in this case Gutierrez.
It was refreshing for the audience
to stage one hour far from the pope.
LORENZO MIELI: Gutierrez is the good man
going through sufferings and pain.
His arc is what I think really changes
Lenny's vision at the end.
You transformed fear into anger.
Very good...
Gutierrez.
SORRENTINO: Lenny meets a cardinal
that speaks to him about Blessed Juana,
a young woman that was
really a sort of saint for the things that she said.
This story tells us something important.
What?
LENNY BELARDO: That goodness,
unless combined with imagination,
runs the risk of being mere exhibitionism.
SORRENTINO: And this impresses Lenny.
He believes he is ready to face a crowd
and to say exactly the same words
of this young girl of 15, 16 years old.
LENNY: And all the children asked her,
"Who is God?"
And Juana replied,
"God smiles."
I prefer that we don't understand
if he really sees his parents,
only if he just sees some guys
that are a little bit hippy,
and so they remind him of his parents.
I think it's a sort of mystery
that must remain a mystery.
We don't know if there are saints,
or if there are miracles.
To be a saint is a mystery.
I prefer that the audience
decides if Lenny's a saint or not.