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Cardinal Mandorff had “made his reputation at the University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt with a treatise on the origins and theological foundations of clerical celibacy.��

I wonder if he ever thought to revisit his writing and add a post-script on the irony and hypocrisy of that position. But I already digress.

CONCLAVE is a compelling behind the scenes narrative of a hypothetical 2022 election for a new Roman Catholic pontiff from the perspective of Jacopo Lomeli, the dean of the College of Cardinals and the man responsible for presiding over the conclave, a man who is going to attract votes in spite of his adamant insistence that he has neither the strength or the ability to be a pope. Other possible contenders cover a wide variety of nationalities, languages and theological stances. There is Tedesco the traditionalist who would return Latin to the liturgy and once again turn the priests�� backs on the congregations during the celebration of the Mass. Tremblay, the Archbishop Emeritus of Quebec, is the ambitious, progressive Canadian who has the "advantage of seeming to be an American without the disadvantage of actually being one" and is "a French-speaker who was not a Frenchman". Adeyemi the African with strong views on the role of women and gay marriage, a man who believes that “homosexuals should be sent to prison in this world and to hell in the next�� may well enter the history books as the first black pope and the first from the dark continent. There is also Vincent Benítez, a late comer to the conclave by virtue of his recent promotion to the rank of Cardinal in pectore - an appointment made in secret because to do otherwise would almost certainly put his life as Archbishop of the diocese of Baghdad in grave danger from Muslim activists.

Despite the simplicity of its premise, CONCLAVE is an exciting, gripping page-turner that will fly by in short order. Its genre is somewhat difficult to pin down. Perhaps it’s a thriller or it might be considered an alternate history. But my money makes it both of these with distinct overtones of political satire and commentary directed firmly against religion in general and, more particularly, of course, against Roman Catholicism and its bleak history of misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, greed, its attachment to the notions of patriarchal power retention, and (what else?) its complete failure to address the issues of the clergy’s sexual abuse around the world.

Then there is that out-of-left-field twist in the ending! Many other reviewers considered it bizarre and a weakness that would lower the quality of an otherwise strong novel. For me, I thought of it as a rather outré and admittedly unlikely possibility but nonetheless entirely legitimate eyebrow raising ending. I also, to be honest, saw it as a very long and very sharp stick that Harris was using to poke in the eye of the Roman Catholic establishment. It convinced me completely that CONCLAVE was Harris�� way of telling the Roman Catholic Church to grow up and, if they were going to insist on continuing to exist as a global force in the world, to enter the 21st century and deal with its realities.

Definitely recommended.

Paul Weiss