Habemus censuram. Ahead of Papal election, Mediazona examined Russian censorship in “The Young Pope” and “The New Pope”
Photos: Imdb. Collage: Mediazona
The death of Pope Francis and the forthcoming conclave to choose his successor have sparked a worldwide wave of interest in films about the Vatican. Mediazona decided to take a closer look at the two major series about the life of the papal court, “The Young Pope” and “The New Pope”. These are officially available in Russia through the Amediateka streaming service, though they are heavily censored. We discovered that, in total, nearly 45 minutes had been cut from the two series: scenes addressing LGBT issues, drugs and abortion, as well as one frivolous remark about the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow.
WARNING! This article contains spoilers. Proceed with caution if you haven’t watched these series.
“The Young Pope”
Total length of censored scenes amounts to 18 minutes. The majority of cuts, nearly 11 minutes, or 60% of all censored material, relate to LGBT themes. In the storyline, American Cardinal Lenny Belardo (Jude Law), once he becomes Pope Pius XIII, decides to expel all gay clergy from the Church. Numerous discussions about the personal lives of priests and cardinals at the papal court, and love scenes involving them, have all been removed.
Jusepe de Ribera, “Magdalena Ventura with Her Husband and Son” (1631). Photo: Wikipedia
Scenes featuring the 17th-century Spanish artist Jusepe de Ribera’s painting “Magdalena Ventura with Her Husband and Son”, also known as “The Bearded Woman”, have been removed from three episodes of “The Young Pope”: the fifth, seventh, and tenth (the censorship of the painting in one episode was earlier noted by Verstka, a Russian independent outlet). Censors removed silent shots in which this portrait appears; in one instance, a line from a little boy who is sitting before the painting and tells Pius XIII, “I don’t want a mom with a beard,” was also cut.
One of the series’s main plotlines is the confrontation between Pius XIII and another American prelate, Archbishop Kurtwell of New York (Guy Boyd). The Pope pursues Kurtwell for child molestation, while Kurtwell, in turn, threatens to publish compromising material about the pontiff. The climactic scene of this storyline, where the New York archbishop recounts his own childhood experience of sexual abuse and confesses to his crimes, was also removed from the final episode of “The Young Pope”.
The series also contains one instance of censorship directly concerning Russia. In episode 10, Pius XIII discusses current affairs with the Holy See’s marketing director, Sofia Dubois (Cécile de France). The following exchange has vanished from their dialogue: “How did it go with the Patriarch of Moscow?” The reply, “The Patriarch of Moscow is more boring than watching golf on television,” is missing.
We also flagged two particular cuts in “The Young Pope” concerning abstract ideas rather than specific actions.
At the beginning of the very first episode, Cardinal Lenny Belardo dreams he has become Pope and is addressing a vast crowd gathered in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican. The segment that drew the censors’ attention is not solely confined to LGBT themes.
Scene transcript
Censored fragments are in italics and square brackets.
We've forgotten the women and children, who will change this world with their love and their kindness. And with their marvelous, divine disposition to play. Play is the only authentic means we have to make us feel in harmony with life. And to be in harmony with God we have to be in harmony with life. We don't have a choice: we must be in harmony with God!
And what else have we forgotten? [We have forgotten to masturbate, to use contraceptives, to get abortions, to celebrate gay marriages, to allow priests to love each other, and even to get married. We've forgotten that we can decide to die if you detest living, we've forgotten to have sexual relations for purposes other than procreation without feeling guilty! To divorce, to let nuns say mass, to make babies in all the ways science has discovered and will continue to discover.
In short,] my dear, dear children, not only have we forgotten to play, we have forgotten to be happy. And there is only one road that leads to happiness. And that road is called freedom.
Towards the end of the series, the now-elected and thoroughly conservative Pius XIII engages in a theological debate about abortion with his mentor, Cardinal Michael Spencer (James Cromwell). Cuts made by Amediateka’s censors not only strip this dialogue of much of its meaning but also render it totally incoherent.
Scene transcript
Censored fragments are in italics and square brackets.
Cardinal Spencer. God isn’t for you Lenny. God is for men who have no use for freedom. [You’re wrong about abortion. You’re spreading a sorrow you don't even understand.] And that’s the worst thing a human being can do. You’ve made the kind of mistake that should be avoided at all costs introducing concepts that, taken by themselves, are true, but which, when lumped together, constitute a system that’s overly rigid.
Pius XIII. When it comes to abortion, rigidity is the only option: there’s no getting around it. It’s a crime, forbidden and punished in the book of Exodus Chapter 21, verses 22-25, you know that. 22: “When men have a fight and injure a pregnant woman and she suffers a miscarriage, but no further injury, the guilty one shall be fined as much as the woman’s husband demands and he shall pay in the presence of the judges.” 23, “But if injury ensues, you shall pay life for life,” 24, “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,” 25, “burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” The Church has always maintained this tradition [and it is only modern laxity that wishes to turn sins into rights. Not to encourage them, no one is actually in favor of abortion, but to undermine the principle of authority.
Cardinal Spencer. Oh, come on Lenny, you know these verses are a little more complicated than that: yes, the litigant pays damages in case of an abortion or suffers death if the woman dies in the course of losing the baby,] but that’s not what it is about, this is about compassion, empathy.
Pius XIII. Bouvier? Are you seriously going to waste my time... with Bouvier’s nonsense? Post-revolutionary France? [Or the bullshit of St. Alphonsus?
Cardinal Spencer. It isn’t bullshit, Lenny. That abortion is a “grave moral disorder” is not open for debate. That’s what St. John Paul II said, and those three words—grave, moral, and disorder—are based on papal infallibility. And yet, in 1591, Pope Gregory XIV, with the Sedes Apostolica bull restricted excommunication to the abortion of an ensouled fetus, introducing a distinction... that argues against lumping together disparate situations.
Pius XIII. I’m sick and tired of distinctions.
Cardinal Spencer. Even for St. Thomas Aquinas, and right up until the middle of the nineteenth century, abortion was said to take place only after the ensoulment of the fetus, and that occurs in the third month of pregnancy.
Pius XIII. Science is the gift of God and God taught us that ovulation is spontaneous.
Cardinal Spencer. Ask a woman about that: back when it was still believed that there were two kinds of insemination, male insemination involving sperm, female insemination involving eggs, it was considered a sin not to give a woman pleasure. But then, when it was discovered that ovulation was spontaneous, the cost was several billion female orgasms.
Pius XIII. But it made the psychoanalysts rich.]
Cardinal Spencer. The one profession that involves no work and a great deal of money that we let slip through our fingers. I implore you Lenny, reconsider your position on abortion. Tough in principle, soft in practice.
[Pius XIII. Abortion is saying no to life.
Cardinal Spencer. Who gives a damn about life? Life is not some stupid centerpiece on the side table of nothingness. Life is meant to be used, and to be used well, to love and be loved. And let me remind you what St. Alphonsus said about abortion: “In an abortion everyone is guilty, except for the woman.”]
Pius XIII. And what if that wasn’t only true of abortion? What if in the things of life everyone is guilty, except for the woman?
Cardinal Spencer. Are you talking about your mother?
Pius XIII. Who else could I be talking about.
“The New Pope”
Total censorship reaches 26 minutes. In the sequel, even the opening credits drew the censors’ ire. These feature scantily clothed women (presumably, nuns) performing suggestive dances in a church beneath a giant, shimmering cross.
A camera pan focusing on a group dance is partially cut in the first episode, from the point it becomes clear the women are dancing together. In the second episode, where the entire credit sequence consists of close-ups of female pairs dancing, it is removed completely. In the remaining episodes, where women dance solo or do not interact, no cuts were identified.
Indeed, throughout “The New Pope”, similar to “The Young Pope”, the majority of censorship concerns LGBT themes, accounting for 16 minutes, or just over 60% of the cuts. Numerous scenes involving sex, discussions, jokes, and even subtle hints at the homosexuality of clergy members were removed from the series, with Sir John Brannox (John Malkovich), who becomes Pope John Paul III, demonstrating far greater tolerance on the issue. A papal audience with the actress Sharon Stone in episode 5 is particularly noteworthy: among other requests, she asks John Paul III to legalise gay marriage for Catholics, a plea that has been removed from the Russian version of the series.
As in “The Young Pope”, direct mentions of paedophilia are censored in “The New Pope”. For instance, a poignant account by Cardinal Bernardo Alonso Gutierrez (Javier Cámara) in episode 2 has vanished. In it, he described how he was raped as a child by a man who kept repeating that God does not exist. The Cardinal is quoted as saying, “And I would answer back, in God’s place: ‘Even if He doesn’t exist, we desperately need to believe He is there’.” (censorship in this segment was also noted by Verstka).
Sir John Brannox’s personal storyline was also affected by censorship. All references to his drug use have been removed from the series. Meanwhile, as Sir John himself recounts in episode 8, he was unable to help his dying brother precisely because he was on heroin. Later, after becoming Pope, he fails spectacularly during a crucial live television interview because he is experiencing withdrawal symptoms (episode 6). Furthermore, a segment from Marilyn Manson’s papal audience in episode 4 was also cut: the musician tells John Paul III what helps him maintain concentration, and the pontiff mockingly calls him “quite the pharmaceutical adventurer”.
Perhaps the most interesting example of censorship, however, is found in the final episode of “The New Pope”, echoing the cuts described in the first episode of “The Young Pope”. While the future Pius XIII addressed the crowd in St Peter’s Square in a dream, John Paul III does so in reality. Although not much was cut from his speech, the most crucial part was removed: the Pope’s de facto coming out. Some of these cuts are apparently because the camera occasionally switches to the crowd, where LGBT flags and slogans are fleetingly visible.
Scene transcript
Censored fragments are in italics and square brackets.
The girls who snubbed us. The boys who deserted us. The strangers who ignored us. The parents who misunderstood us. The employers who rejected us. The mentors who doubted us. The bullies who beat us. The siblings who mocked us. The friends who abandoned us. The conformists who excluded us. The kisses we were denied because no one saw us.
They were all too busy turning their gaze elsewhere, while I was directing my gaze at you. [Only at you. Because I am one of you.]
Sorrow has no hierarchy. Suffering is not a sport. There is no final ranking. Tormented by acne and shyness, by stretch marks and discomfort, by baldness and insecurity, by anorexia and bulimia, by obesity and diversity, reviled for the color of our skin, [our sexual orientation, our empty wallets, our physical impairments,] our arguments with our elders, our inconsolable weeping, the abyss of our insignificance, the caverns of our lost, the emptiness inside us, the recurring incurable thought of ending it all, nowhere to rest, nowhere to stand, nothing to belong to.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Yes, that is how we felt. And just like you, I remember it all. But it no longer matters, that the world took issue with us. For now, it is us who shall take issue with the world.
We will no longer tolerate being named as a problem. Because in point of fact they are the problem, [we are the solution. We who have been betrayed and abandoned, rejected and misunderstood, put aside and diminished.
“There is no place for you here,”] they told us with their silence.
“Then where is our place?” we implore them with our silence.
We never received that reply. But now we know, yes. We know our place. Our place is here. Our place is the Church. Cardinal Biffi said it first, and in an astonishing and simple way: “We are all miserable wretches whom God brought together to form a glorious Church.”
Yes, we are all miserable wretches. Yes, we are all the same, and yes, we are the forgotten ones, but no longer.
From this day forth, we shall no longer be forgotten, I assure you. They will remember us, because we are the Church.
Editor: Maxim Litavrin
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