In an MSN interview, screenwriter, Peter Straughan, expressing how he wanted to get it right, described the movie as “a big research project,” and claimed that Vatican officials approved of his depiction of the election process.
One scene in the movie had me selecting “replay,” repeatedly. It was the brief address given by the Dean of Cardinals, Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, at the start of the conclave. Lawrence cites the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:21, “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,” then gave this interpretation, “To work together, to grow together, we must be tolerant, no one person or faction seeking to dominate another.” He credits Paul with the dubious notion that God’s gift to the church is its variety, a “variety of people and views, which gives our church strength.” He then makes an appalling statement, “There is one sin which I have come to fear above all others…certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.”
That message turns the message of Holy Scripture upside down. Holy Scripture presents the gift of God as the unshakeable certainty of eternal salvation to be had in Christ Jesus. Such language of confidence in Christ permeates the New Testament.
In Romans 8, the Apostle Paul presents one of its surest statements, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Then, to alleviate the creeping shadows of doubt, Paul goes on to explain why we can have such certainty. He concludes with great certainty, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Faith does not wallow in doubt, it embraces a certain hope. Is such certainty the great enemy of unity? No, it is the pathway to unity, “the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.” To not pursue the certainties in Christ is to be “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” Cardinal Lawrence was captaining a ship driven full sail by the winds of doubt.
Is such certainty the deadly enemy of tolerance? Yes, it is the earnest enemy of the newly defined tolerance, where it is sin to trust in objective truths. Christ claimed to be the way, the truth and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him. Of that you can be certain!
