Upcoming HBO series, "The Young Pope"

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JackVk said:
variety.com/2015/film/news/jude-law-will-topline-paolo-sorrentinos-tv-skein-the-young-pope-hbo-on-board-1201498846/

Jude Law will be portraying “the first Italian-American Pope” in a future HBO series, as a conservative pope who is fed up with rampant liberalism in the Church, and faces conflicts.

What do you think, folks? I think this could be wonderful, or terrible. Though I am slanting towards the latter, knowing the entertainment industry.
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I think it could go either way! I think that its a great thing that the mainstream media is acknowledging and presenting something most Catholics don’t accept or realize…Or they could use this very real problem and bash the heck out of us. I hope its the former but like you I expect the latter…What I really hope is Catholics wake up and realize they might be the liberal Catholics they keep hearing about.
 
It sounds like a stinker and they will make the conservative pope to be weak in faith and the unreasonable bad guy duking it out with the more compassionate liberal crowd trying to protect tradition. 😛
 
Sounds like it will portray various political and ideological factions within the College of Cardinals, the curia, and the larger Church. Many here deny such divisions exist. For this reason I suspect most on this board will dislike it.
 
From reading the article, it sounds like it could be promising.
 
The entertainment industry, on the whole, doesn’t seem to be greatly concerned with accurate portrayal of the workings of Catholic institutions. The conclave in Angels and Demons, for instance, followed a set of rules that had largely been dreamed up by Dan Brown himself. And the clerical characters in The Body were all designed to be pulling in different directions for the sake of dramatic effect, not for true-to-life Vaticanology. Why should this one be any different? Once again, no doubt, we’ll be shown the Church of Hollywood rather than the Church of Rome.

Jude Law is a first-rate actor, and I think it’s safe to say that the producers have made a good choice there. But that’s a separate issue from what the storyline tells audiences about the Church.
 
Digitonomy said:
Sounds like it will portray various political and ideological factions within the College of Cardinals, the curia, and the larger Church. Many here deny such divisions exist. For this reason I suspect most on this board will dislike it.
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👍👍 Double thumbs up! You win the internet!!!
 
I’m afraid that it will start out as a young conservative Pope but then digresses to a modern Pope who sees the errors of his conservative ways and lets gays marry and women become priests, etc, etc. My, I am becoming very cynical in my old age.😦
 
I think the concept is interesting, but given that it’s HBO at the helm, I have pretty much no hope for it.
 
First strike against it, it’s going to be on HBO:cool:…
the network that is well known for a lot of explicit content.

Also the whole, Italian-American theme makes me think that they are reviving the Sopranos.

And finally, why is Jude Law playing an Italian-American???

I’m contacting the National Association for the Advancement of Italian-Americans 😃
 
HungerNThirst4R said:
First strike against it, it’s going to be on HBO:cool:…
the network that is well known for a lot of explicit content.

Also the whole, Italian-American theme makes me think that they are reviving the Sopranos.

And finally, why is Jude Law playing an Italian-American???

I’m contacting the National Association for the Advancement of Italian-Americans 😃
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:thumbsup:It has the same initials as the National Association for the Advancement of Irish-Americans. Good luck with yours.😛
 
Patti_M said:
I’m afraid that it will start out as a young conservative Pope but then digresses to a modern Pope who sees the errors of his conservative ways and lets gays marry and women become priests, etc, etc. My, I am becoming very cynical in my old age.😦
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Friend, “the power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those who don’t have it”.

I agree with you, and I am only in my early 20’s.
 
First it is called The Young Pope and the Catholic church has not had a
Pope who was young in many years. So HBO might be making a statement about the ages of our Popes. I like Jude Law, but I don’t know if he has any qualms about showing the Catholic church in a bad light. I can’t imagine HBO showing a conservative Pope in a good way, but maybe they will shock me. I don’t have HBO so I won’t be watching.
 
HungerNThirst4R said:
And finally, why is Jude Law playing an Italian-American???
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Only an actor who is himself an Italian-American would have what it takes to play an Italian-American character. Is that what you’re saying? That would explain why The Godfather was such an utter failure. Marlon Brando, without a drop of Italian blood in his veins, was hopelessly miscast as Don Vito Corleone. No wonder the movie was such a flop, never won any awards, and has been completely forgotten.
 
I wouldn’t trust HBO to portray anything concerning Catholicism specifically or Christianity in general with anything but cynicism, straw men, and mockery.
 
Tarpeian_Rock said:
I wouldn’t trust HBO to portray anything concerning Catholicism specifically or Christianity in general with anything but cynicism, straw men, and mockery.
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Or even completely made up religions set in alternate universes that are loosely based on historic Catholicism - I luckily decided to spare myself from watching Game of Thrones this season, but I’ve heard the TV version of the “Faith of the Seven” this year is completely over the top. They seem to have re-imagined the “Faith Militant” movement as a hybrid of Catholicism and ISIS.

As opposed to GRRM himself, who is a lapsed Catholic himself, but IMHO has depicted religion in his world in a fairly, well, fair manner - yes he shows many corrupt religious figures, but he also portrays devout characters who are sincere. Yet the TV version turned Davos, a devout Faith worshipper in the books, into an atheist. And turned Stannis Baratheon, who actually IS an atheist in the books, into a religious fanatic.
 
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