Electing a pope is like TV show The Traitors, says Conclave author Robert Harris

Author Robert Harris says the politics and group dynamics that go into electing a new pope aren’t totally dissimilar from what happens in the reality TV competition The Traitors.  

“I think it’s to do with the psychology of a crowd … and the conclave is a small crowd,” said Harris, whose 2016 novel Conclave was the basis for the Oscar-winning film of the same name.

“An emotion can seize a crowd, a group of men, especially if they’re locked away, that can move them one way or another quite quickly,” he told The Current’s Matt Galloway.

The Traitors is a reality TV show that selects a handful of traitors from a larger group of so-called faithfuls. The faithful are then tasked with rooting out the traitors through nightly round-table debates and eliminations, in pursuit of a big cash prize.

Harris says he sees a parallel in the conclave that started in Rome Wednesday, in the wake of the death of Pope Francis on April 25. Cardinals from around the world will confer and vote in seclusion, until white smoke alerts the faithful that a new pontiff has been chosen.

The author got rare access to the Vatican while researching his novel, including conversations with cardinals who participated in previous conclaves. He spoke to Galloway about the politics of electing a pope, and how much scheming is really involved. Here is part of their conversation.

You were inspired to write this in part by the last conclave that produced [Pope] Francis. What was it that you saw in that moment that got you thinking, there’s more to this story that I want to unpack?

Well, I was watching the live TV coverage and the world was waiting for whoever had been elected to appear on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square. And just before the new pope appears, the windows on either side — high windows — fill with the faces of the cardinal electors, who’ve come along to watch the new pope show himself. And the camera panned along and showed the faces and there were all these elderly men: crafty, benign, cunning, tired, exultant. And I was writing novels about Cicero and I thought, “That is the Roman Senate.” That’s what it would have looked like. And it made me think this had been a political process. It would be fascinating to find out how it operated, which is what I then set out to do.

One of things that’s so interesting is that we live in this hyper-ultra-connected world, and you have these men who are sealed into the space and they are unable to connect. What strikes you about that? 

That’s really part of the fascination, undoubtedly. The cardinals will have had their mobile phones and laptops taken off them. They go into bedrooms where the windows are sealed. Communication with the outside world is impossible. And so it has a kind of mystery to begin with. I can’t think of any other political process which proceeds like this. You’re also locked into one of the jewels of the Renaissance, beneath the Sistine Chapel ceiling, looking at Michelangelo’s [The Last Judgement] above the altar. It was built for this purpose. It has an intensity of experience, both spiritual and political, that is unmatched anywhere on earth. 

You’ve said something strange happens, these are your words, something strange happens when you put 130 men together in a room and force them to make a decision. What is that strange thing?

Well, I think it’s to do with the psychology of a crowd … and the conclave is a small crowd. And an emotion can seize a crowd, a group of men, especially if they’re locked away, that can move them one way or another quite quickly. I rather facetiously compared it to the television reality show Traitors. 

You know the way in which everyone gathers around the table and then quite suddenly someone is picked on and suddenly everyone else follows the lead. It’s a sort of human psychology and this is, I think, what happens in the conclave. 

In a secular world, in secular politics, we would call it momentum. In the religious world, they call it the action of the Holy Spirit. Either way, it’s a sudden feeling of consensus. Of course, to a degree, because everyone’s quite anxious to get out of being locked up.

It’s an election, but it’s not an election. And you said that in some ways this is sacred and profane. What did you mean by that? And in thinking about the fact that ultimately this is an election? 

It is an election, and the Roman Catholic Church has 1.4 billion followers. It’s immensely wealthy; it has huge global reach. The pope is the supreme ruler of the church, is God’s representative on earth. This is a contested election. It centres any disputes that may arise in the conclave … on abortion, birth control, the role of women, the place of homosexuals in society, assisted dying — these are highly political live issues. So to say that somehow this isn’t a political event seems to me crazy. Of course it is; it affects people who aren’t even members of the Catholic faith. 

That can lead to, as with any election, a lot of scheming, a lot of deceit, backstabbing, injury. How much of that, maybe not the backstabbings, but how much of the scheming and deceit do you think actually happens in the conclave?

I started to research the book wondering what on earth happened, because I didn’t know anything about it. Most people still don’t. And the election that I studied was the election that brought Cardinal Ratzinger into the papacy, who became Pope Benedict. Benedict was the dean of the College of Cardinals, like the hero of the novel. He was the arch-conservative. For many years it had been thought that the Archbishop of Milan, a man named Martini, would be the next pope. But on the first ballot and then the second ballot, his votes were not good.

And his supporters, liberals, switched to this unknown Argentinian cardinal, Bergoglio, who got up to about 30 or 40 votes, sufficient to block potentially the conclave. And he said, I don’t want this anymore, I don’t want it and I don’t want to split the church. And Benedict was elected on the next ballot. The moment I read that, it gave me three characters immediately, and I simply went on and expanded from there. So whether one calls it backstabbing or perhaps — more politely — manoeuvring, it certainly goes on.