The Young Pope

Lenny Belardo is the youngest Pope in history but also the first American pontiff. His radical ideas could change the Roman Catholic church, but underlying many of his choices is an ancient sorrow and a tormented relationship with his faith.

The Cardinal Secretary of State Voiello is worried about certain of the Pope’s initiatives which threaten to compromise the Vatican’s political relationships and the relationship with the faithful. Fears that are confirmed by the new pontiff’s first, bewildering speech to the faithful in St. Peter’s Square.

Lenny has shown that he is not the docile, easy-to-manipulate figure that the upper reaches of the Vatican hoped he would be during the Conclave. Ester, the wife of a Swiss Guard, is the first person to understand the new pontiff’s message.

Voiello believes that the only way to stop Lenny is to involve the Pope in a scandal. To obtain his objective, he blackmails Ester into seducing the Holy Father. In the meanwhile, Lenny continues to lay out his increasingly reactionary ideas.

Pius XIII indulges in a few hours of freedom outside of the Vatican walls in the company of his childhood friend Dussolier as he prepares to summon the cardinals to give them a message destined to revolutionize their concept of faith.

Nine months have passed since Lenny became Pope and, for the first time, he gives an audience to the Italian Prime Minister, who is shocked by the pontiff’s anachronistic demands. Lenny further decides to begin a crusade against homosexual priests and asks Dussolier to take charge of it.

Dussolier feels responsible for the tragic death of a young man who is denied the opportunity to become a priest because he is believed to be a homosexual. Lenny begins to think that his papacy is destined to end soon.

Pius XIII makes a surprise decision to take a pastoral journey to Africa. Here he meets Sister Antonia, a greatly beloved and respected symbol of the missionary world who, however, produces a reaction of strong mistrust in Lenny.

In New York, Gutierrez fails to find the evidence to nail Cardinal Kurtwell for the sexual abuse he’s suspected of. But an encounter with a new witness might change things.

For Lenny, the time has come to settle scores with his past by taking a pastoral trip to Venice, the city where he has always suspected his parents might be. Here, for the first time, he makes a public appearance. It’s clear that his state of health is precarious.