Spoiler warning: this article reveals the ending of Edward Berger’s Conclave.
The new pope is Cardinal Vincent Benitez, a relatively little-known cardinal serving in Kabul, who takes the papal name Innocent XIV. The film, released in 2024, adapts Robert Harris’s novel of the same title. The ending turns on a private fact about Benitez’s body and on the choice of Cardinal Thomas Lawrence to keep that fact from the other electors.
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Who wins the papal election
The cardinals elect Benitez after a contest shaped by rival candidates and by revelations that damage several front-runners. Benitez is not a leading figure in the race. He was appointed to the cardinalate in secret by the late pope and gains support gradually, through how he conducts himself and through his remarks. By the end, enough electors back him that he is elected.
How the twist unfolds
The medical confession
Before the public conclusion, Lawrence asks Benitez about a medical appointment Benitez held years earlier. Benitez explains that he was born intersex. Doctors discovered internal female reproductive organs during an operation, and he declined a later hysterectomy. The late pope knew about this condition and accepted him anyway. Benitez tells Lawrence, “I know what it is to exist between the world’s certainties.”
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- Genre: Mystery / Suspense
- Number of Discs: 1
- Number of Tracks: 0
- Playback Duration: 121
- Rating: PG
Lawrence’s decision
Lawrence is the film’s pivotal figure. He now holds the knowledge that could undo the election, and he chooses to stand behind the new pope rather than reveal it. The film reads this as a judgment that a private medical fact does not cancel the faith, ministry and humility Lawrence has watched Benitez show. The ending does not resolve what happens to the secret or what consequences may follow once it is known. The acceptance is the scene’s resolution; the institutional outcome is left open.
What the filmmakers say the ending is for
Director Edward Berger has said the film is not a takedown of the Church. Describing the audience response to the political agendas and power struggles on screen, he said the ending adds a perspective but is one point among several. In his words: “It’s not a takedown of the church.”
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Berger also framed the story as something that could unfold in Washington or in a company once a top job becomes vacant: “The CEO job is gone and suddenly everyone gets out their knives and tries to get that job.” That comparison explains why the film treats the conclave as a contest of ambition as much as faith.
Screenwriter Peter Straughan pointed to the two ideas he hoped audiences would keep: Benitez’s line about existing “between certainties” and Lawrence’s prayer for a pope who doubts. As Straughan put it: “In a world so polarized, those two sentiments seem really important.”
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Read in the context of the scene, Benitez’s identity makes the final vote a test of the electors’ assumptions about certainty, institutional belonging and who can represent the Church. Lawrence’s choice to support him makes the ending as much about mercy and judgment as about surprise. That is an interpretation of the film’s dramatic construction, not a statement of doctrine. Berger’s own comments resist reading the twist as the whole point.
What the film gets right and what it invents
Conclave is built on real ritual, but it compresses or changes several procedural details. The table below sets the film’s depiction against the coverage of the process by America magazine and the Associated Press.
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| Element | In the film | What the cited reporting says |
|---|---|---|
| Seclusion and voting ritual | Shows the sealed conclave, the “Extra omnes!” order, written ballots, individual oaths and deposits, scrutineers, and informal tracking of votes | America describes these elements as recognizable features of the real process |
| Eligibility of a secret cardinal | Benitez arrives as a cardinal appointed in pectore (privately) and is allowed to take part | America’s canon-law expert Kurt Martens says a cardinal in pectore who has not been publicly announced does not vote in a conclave. AP quotes Vatican expert Thomas Reese saying an appointment not publicly announced in the presence of the College of Cardinals does not confer the right to attend |
| Ballot burning | Shows ballots burned after each vote | AP reports ballots are burned after each voting session, generally after two ballots |
| Pre-conclave deliberation | Timeline moves quickly from arrival to voting | America reports that pre-conclave meetings and informal discussion are substantially compressed or omitted for dramatic pacing |
| Political alignment | Presents the electors in liberal and conservative camps | AP quotes Martens saying these labels simplify a more complicated College of Cardinals |
The secret appointment
This is the most consequential departure from practice. The film treats a privately appointed cardinal as sufficient to take part in the election. The cited experts disagree with that premise: a cardinal appointed in pectore who has not been announced publicly does not vote, and an appointment that was not announced in the presence of the College of Cardinals does not confer the right to attend. The plot’s eligibility question is therefore a dramatic device rather than a plausible procedural loophole.
The intersex question
Martens frames the legal problem as whether Benitez could validly have received ordination, since a pope must be a bishop. America summarizes Church teaching as requiring ordination to be limited to biological males. This is a question about the validity of ordination in the film’s fictional case. It does not amount to a ruling on intersex people in general, and the film does not settle how the Church would adjudicate a real case.
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The official reference for the process
For the vacancy and election procedure itself, the primary reference is the Vatican’s apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis. It governs the mechanics of the conclave, and it is the document to pair with the expert commentary above when comparing the film to practice.
Reading the novel
The film adapts Robert Harris’s novel Conclave. Readers who want the source material will find the novel the most direct companion to the story, though the film’s changes to its structure and ending make the two worth comparing rather than treating as identical.
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