The Young Pope 1.2: The Supreme Cool

A superb second episode of The Young Pope on HBO tonight, with a cardinal McLuhanesque lesson in media presentation: the more unseen, the more powerful, or, the supremely cool.

The episode doesn't tell us if Pius XIII read McLuhan, and his notion that the less presented, the more the viewer is attracted and involved, but Pius understands it, as well as if he had read the relevant chapter in Understanding Media, or sat in any of McLuhan's classes in the Coach House at the University of Toronto when McLuhan held forth there through the 1970s.  (I was there several times in the late 1970s, and again just this past year.)

McLuhan was a devout Catholic, and likely would have been offended by a lot of what the young Pope says and does.  But McLuhan couldn't deny that Pius knows his McLuhan, whether he explicitly acknowledges it or not.

The other important theme in tonight's episode is the power of Sister Mary.  She is the closest to the Pope, and some even think that she thinks she and the Pope are co-Pontiffs.  At this point, it's difficult to say what she's really thinking, but she may have in mind that's she's in effect the first female Pope, working through Lenny aka Pius.

The young Pope of course wouldn't want that.  He loves his power, at least as and maybe more than God.  And I await to see how the story unfolds next Sunday.

See also: The Young Pope 1.1: Beyond Iconclast

The Young Pope 1.1: Beyond Iconoclast

Quite a show on The Young Pope, which debuted on HBO last night, and stars Jude Law as Pope Pius XIII.  He's Jude Law's age and looks like Jude Law - of course - and just for good measure is an American, and a New Yorker, at that.

The episode begins with Pius addressing the adoring masses in Rome, and saying he wants the Church to be a spearhead of freedom, for everything from abortions to priests openly marrying.  This extraordinary scene turns out to be a dream - which we should have guessed when the heavens cleared of rain right before Pius began to talk.  But the scene at the end, when Pius tells a priest that he doesn't believe in God, was no dream at all.

So the young Pope is not only young and a New Yorker, but an iconoclast that goes eons beyond anything we've seen or heard even from the real current Pope Francis.   But part of the power of The Young Pope is that he's an extension of what Francis has wisely started.

Where The Young Pope will go from here is anyone's guess.   We don't know how and why Lenny Belardo was selected.  We don't how much support he'll get for his reforms - which seem far too light a word for what he's thinking - and how long that will last.   Most of all, we don't yet know exactly what Pius XIII ultimately wants, if he knows that himself.

But we can expect a searing, provocative examination of the current basis of a religion of 1.27 billion adherents, which daily has profound influence on many more in the world.