They're all distortions of love.
Hysteria of one sort or another.
That's how the Holy Father defined them.
Do we know each other?
You are...
Sofia Dubois,
Tomas Altbruck's wife. Everybody knows you.
And I am...
Leopold Essence.
Whom no one knows.
What were you saying just now?
Follow the love, I was saying.
That's where you will find failure.
Excuse me, but who are you?
I am the second most intelligent man in the world.
While we are on that subject,
is it possible to call...
Tomas Altbruck...
a "man"?
Follow the love, Sofia.
THE NEW POPE Episode 6
Whom did you prefer? Pius XIII or Francis II?
- I knew Pius XIII better. - So Pius XIII, then. Why?
- Because he believed in me. - I believe in you, too.
But will you believe in me?
I'll give what's owed to you to Fabiano.
No. You will give it to me.
Fabiano no longer exists. For me or for you.
And I will decide the amount.
15000 a visit.
As it should be.
Before you arrived, Attanasio would scream all night.
For 20 years, no one in this house got any sleep.
But now he sleeps like a baby.
Thanks to you.
And you, Ester, how are you?
Are you calm, like Attanasio? Or stormy, like the sea?
Stormy.
Because... you see the danger?
- What danger? - Pleasure.
A pleasure you didn't experience before,
didn't long for,
didn't even know existed.
An unexpected pleasure is seeping into you,
a sensation you hadn't reckoned with.
I know what I'm talking about, Ester.
I know.
A mother is capable of...
anything in order to...
I have to talk to you about something, but I don't know how.
Attanasio is not the only one.
I don't understand.
Attanasio is not the only one
and I am not the only mother who suffers.
There are lots of us, Ester.
Lots of well-off, unhappy parents
with children no one wants to look at,
because nature has turned against them.
They are all waiting for you, Ester.
You have a gift, which you are finally beginning to recognize.
- What gift? - The gift of human warmth.
You're a saint, Ester!
I am a whore.
Do you know what the difference is between a whore and a saint?
None.
Forgive me, Eminence. It's late.
Have I disturbed you?
What have you discovered
about Spalletta, Guicciardini, and your husband?
All three of them frequent the same under-age girl. At the same time.
I see.
You don't seem particularly perturbed.
I knew about Spalletta already.
Guicciardini and your husband are laymen.
They concern me only up to a certain point.
That's all you have to say?
129 breaths. Then a sigh.
- So they are still broadcasting? - Yes.
It's not the only new developments. There is another.
A certain threesome who are operating in a decidedly opaque manner.
Both at the financial level,
I am referring to various unscrupulous operations
carried out by our own financial organization,
and at the private level.
The moral level, to be precise. Would you like me to elaborate?
I detest politics and gossip in equal measure,
but in this little state of ours, it seems impossible for even the pope
to avoid matters from unprecedented vulgarity.
I am delighted to be here and help you.
That is convenient, Eminence, for only you can help me.
As it's you we're talking about.
We need to rethink things.
Certain behaviors, if made public, would expose me,
and people would say John Paul III does nothing.
Allow me to explain, Holy Father.
Altbruck and I are making Guicciardini happy.
In exchange,
he has dissuaded the prime minister from taking lethal measures.
Repealing the eight per thousand wasn't the only item on the table.
They were even considering introducing a tax on the Church properties,
effective retroactively.
Let me remind you that we have never paid taxes on our properties.
You have any idea what it would mean in economic terms for the Church?
A catastrophe.
The Church doesn't want that,
nor, obviously, do those directly involved.
There are only two people
who could divulge the agreement between Guicciardini, Altbruck and me.
One is you, but you and I have...
always affirmed our mutual affection,
rather than any inclination to blackmail.
The other is the Secretary of State
who, however,
has always tended toward complete and total autonomy,
even in regard to the pope,
and who purses mysterious interests
that are completely unknown to everyone but himself.
So, regarding the Secretary of State, the situation is far more volatile,
and you, Your Holiness, are the only one who can diffuse it.
Thomas Altbruck and Spalletta are laundering money.
They're paying Guicciardini through offshore companies,
withdrawing funds from our financial structure.
I make no moral judgment regarding these operations.
For me it's merely a question of expediency.
Sooner or later some enterprising journalist
will stick his nose in our business and uncover everything.
And you will be dragged in to the ensuing scandal.
Scandal leaves me indifferent, as does reputation.
Those are concerns for the petite bourgeoisie.
A class which I do not belong.
I was thought proper form, polished to perfection, becomes "mystical".
As you like, Your Holiness.
You know, Eminence,
I am saying that for your own good,
perhaps it's time you took the step back.
I don't understand. What do you mean?
Please, it will pain me to spell it out for you.
You understand perfectly well what I mean.
I am the longest-serving Secretary of State in the history of the Church.
- There must be a reason! - There are hundreds, I am sure.
But since you already hold the record for service to the papacy,
why not use the network you have painstakingly constructed over decades
in the vast wealth of knowledge and experience
you have acquired, as a bequest to a new generation?
Represented by a new Secretary of State, say...
someone like Cardinal Assente.
Are you asking or ordering me?
I do not like to have to choose and I do not like giving orders.
I do. I adore giving orders.
It's my whole life.
Schedule the interview. I'm ready.
- I was on my way to see you. - How are you?
Tense. Essence planted a cockroach in my car.
Do you think he was trying to intimidate me, Eminence?
A rather crude form of intimidation, but yes.
They want to make sure you don't talk.
- What am I supposed to do? - Don't talk.
What's wrong? You look different... You look lifeless.
Napoli lost.
- You wanted to see me, Eminence? - Yes, rather urgently.
I am transferring you. Effective immediately.
- You're promoting me? - Even better!
- I'm making you a missionary. - Where am I going?
To Kabul.
Kabul?
But there are no Catholics in Kabul!
Exactly! What does a missionary do? He begins.
Why are you doing this?
In Kabul there are no pedophile priests whose sins need to be covered.
Goodbye Hernandez!
I have to talk to you.
Imperiously, and in violation of all your demands,
I have made some decisions for a number of you.
Sister Melanie,
you will receive psychological assistance twice a week, free of charge.
Why? This is outrageous.
Because Sister Melanie is a kleptomaniac.
Sister Ivanka, on the other hand, will be transferred to Sister Suree's care.
- She will work for the pope. - But why?
Because she is continually mistreated and sexually harassed
by three sisters who shall remain nameless.
Discretion, let it be remembered through the centuries,
has always been one of the greatest attributes of the Secretary of State.
Reverend Mother, you never noticed Sister Ivanka's suffering,
but I do not reproach you in the least.
You didn't notice it because you are preoccupied
by something at the base of your breast.
It is all you think about,
but you cannot bring yourself to confront the issue.
So, I decided to confront it for you.
You have an appointment at the Gemelli Hospital on Tuesday morning at 9:00.
With Doctor Vilar. One of the best oncologists in Rome.
- How is it going? - Fine.
But I'm scared.
Don't be. I have thought about you, too.
I pretended that you sisters presented me with a request,
to be allowed to receive orphans inside the convent.
And I have authorized your request.
Caterina's baby will be the first pretend orphan you will receive.
Every now and then, with every precaution,
you will let Faisal see the baby, inside the gardeners' shed.
Not here. It is too dangerous here.
How do you know all these things about us?
I am the longest-serving Secretary of State in the history of the Church,
and I have spent my life informing myself.
And now for you, Sister Lisette.
I have something to say to you first, Eminence.
The wi-fi is slow because you slowed it deliberately.
You're afraid that our protest will spread.
I told you that you would be a formidable adversary.
At what point is our request to meet with the Holy Father?
At a dead end.
Because as of today I am no longer the Secretary of State.
When I leave here, I will submit my resignation.
And it will be accepted. So you will have to file a new request,
with the new Secretary of State, Cardinal Assente.
What do you advise us to do, Eminence?
To carry on with your battle,
you have not one but a thousand reasons to.
Thank you, Eminence.
Do you know what is so awful about these endless battles over rights?
There's no room left for poetry.
What are you thinking of naming him?
We haven't decided yet.
May I suggest you name him Angelo? Like me.
- And if it's a girl? - Still Angelo. It's a unisex name.
Don Mimmo, if you don't mind we'll spend a little time here with you.
Like you, I like flowers.
And today, I have brought you the most beautiful one of all.
- See you on Thursday? - No, Ester.
Our relationship ends here.
What?
Why?
Attanasio and the others choose they are tired of this.
Even they get bored from routine.
Attanasio is not tired of me.
You're not a girl anymore, Ester.
And we found some African women who cost a lot less
and are much younger than you.
Besides you need to think about your future.
You were poor, we've made you well-off.
Now you have a nice house, a babysitter,
go find yourself a normal husband,
do something else.
What do you expect? That this would go on forever?
That's not the point.
What is the point then?
The point is...
is that I need Attanasio.
That's exactly what's not going to work.
What are you saying?
Sex yes, love no?
- Precisely. - I don't understand.
You're such a fool, Ester.
Sex has no value, because it lives and dies in the present.
But love doesn't.
Love is dangerous, because it looks to the future.
What sort of future could have be for you and Attanasio?
Every Thursday night, when I come here, that's the future.
And you wouldn't have to pay another penny, if that's an issue.
No!
It ends here.
Attanasio doesn't return your love.
I see...
- Only you can love Attanasio, right? - That's exactly right Ester.
Only I can love Attanasio.
In every sense.
Shall I bring you your box, Sir?
I think that I can manage without it. Thank you, Danny.
Do you think they will watch me on TV? My parents?
Yes, I do.
You are trembling. So am I.
Holy Father, thank you. Words are not enough to express my gratitude.
Answering our questions in a worldwide broadcast
is an unparalleled privilege for us.
And this is the first time that such a thing has happened,
a pontiff agreeing to a live, free-ranging interview.
- Thank you. - Well then, let's get started.
We have come to know John Paul III.
But we would also like to get to know Sir John Brannox.
Holy Father, just who is John Brannox?
A priest who had, or has,
the good fortune to be more loved by God than he is by himself.
And where did you grow up?
I spent almost my entire life on our family's estate,
on the outskirts of London.
Together with my father, my mother,
once upon a time my twin brother, Adam,
and a thousand or so fallow deer.
Your brother Adam...
Your youth, Holy Father, was scarred by a sorrowful event.
One day, while you were skiing together,
your brother suddenly took ill and died.
I understand that the two of you were very close.
How did your life change after that tragic event?
My grief, like all great sorrows,
cannot be expressed in words.
The dictionary
does not contain the adequate words.
My life changed, but more importantly my faith changed.
Before Adam's death, life was a long and quiet river,
taken for granted.
Perhaps pure and ritualistic even.
But almost immediately, after Adam's passing,
a secret and scorching religiosity penetrated me,
something rocky and hidden.
I closed myself off from the world.
But that closure...
began a sort of hidden life of the heart.
What Cardinal Newman might have referred to
as the "secret actions of the heart".
And when the Holy Spirit breathed in me and my life changed again,
I was made pope and bishop of Rome,
I realized that the time had come for me
to offer up to the Catholics of the world
my secret devotion.
An active devotion, then.
Yes. An...
...active devotion.
What does it consist of? And what are your priorities?
Pardon?
What does it consist of? And what are your priorities?
My priority is evil.
Evil that...
must be look at openly,
without hypocrisy,
without distinctions, without value scales.
Evil is evil.
In that case, if you have no objection,
I'd like to explore with you, one at a time,
all the aspects of this "evil" that assails the church.
I'm sure that you'll be happy to tell us how the church intends to proceed.
One of the most urgent themes
is the wave of sex abuse scandals
that has swept over priests, bishops, and cardinals.
- Let's break off the interview. - Are you mad? We're live!
What can the church do to stop all this?
Believe me, he's not going to make it.
Of course he will, he's just a little bit nervous.
The Holy Father knows better than anyone how to take the stage.
- You don't get it, do you? - Get what?
He's in withdrawal, damn it!
Excuse me.
Forgive me, blessed Father, if I have been loved.
And if I have loved.
Forgive me, blessed Father, for it brought me pleasure.
END OF EPISODE 6