There's a scene from the movie Conclave I think about a lot. If you've seen the movie, you probably know what I'm talking about. Stanley Tucci's character Cardinal Bellini is talking to Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ray Fiennes. Bellini is mad that Lawrence received a handful of votes during an early round of voting. He's mad because he wants the liberals to be completely united so that decades of progress can't be undone by a more hardline candidate, Cardinal Tedesco.

If you want to defeat the Tedesco.

This is a conclave, Aldo. It's not a war.

It is a war, and you have to commit to a sign.

'Stanley Tucci is fired up, sure. It was an Oscar-winning Hollywood movie after all. But this scene does say something about the push and pull within the Catholic Church that happens every time a new pope is elected. Should it continue in the ways of the old pope or find someone who will take it in a new direction? And remember, the Catholic church of real life has been grappling with societal shifts and scandal for decades.

For years, the Catholic Church has been plagued by an abuse crisis which has tarnished its reputation.

The archdiocese of Dublin failed to recognize the theft of childhood.

In 2010, allegations of sex abuse spread across half a dozen countries, including Austria, Brazil, Spain and Switzerland.

Well, as we post this episode, cardinals from around the world are preparing to decide who will replace Pope Francis and lead the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. So how is this conclave going to work? My guest is CNN Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb. He's gonna walk us through this ancient process and explain the very current issues that will continue to face the church no matter who gets the votes. From CNN, this is One Thing. I'm David Ryan. Okay Chris, allow me to be roughly the 800th person to tell you that yes I have seen the movie Conclave, however I realize that is a movie featuring some of Hollywood's finest men of a certain age and not real life. But how does it compare with what we are about to see here?

Well look, I think there are some things that are quite accurate. For example, the cardinals, as in the movie, will be in this Vatican guest house during the conclave where they're going to be staying and having their meals and they have to hand over all electronic devices. The voting procedures is also pretty accurately depicted. And also some of the kind of debates that go on between the cardinal's about the future direction of the church, I think. Are broadly speaking accurate. Where I think it's less good in terms of a accurate depiction is it doesn't really explain this is very much a kind of spiritual process as well, where the Cardinals are tasked with kind of discerning the will of God when they vote, which is a big part of the process.

Well, so tell me more about the process, like the TikTok, like how will this actually play out once this gets underway?

In the morning there'll be a mass, a mass for the election of the Pope and then they'll go away and they will process into the Sistine Chapel and that procession is quite dramatic because you see the cardinals in their red robes processing into the Sistine chapel and they chant to the saints for help. Then they will start with the first vote. I think we will see some kind of smoke on the first day and likely to be white smoke.

And just for the uninitiated, white means there is a choice, black means they're going to keep voting.

Exactly, so black smoke means no pope has been elected, white means there is a pope, we have a pope. Habemus Papam as the announcement goes. And they get the right color through a special chemical. So there's a special chemicals for black and another special chemical for white. Because in the past there has been some kind of concern about whether the smoke was black or white.

Oh, so they kind of amplify it to make sure that the crowd outside knows like this is

definitely white. Exactly, because when Pope Benedict was elected in 2005,

smoke has been coming out of that chimney now for the past several minutes it's unclear whether that smoke is white signaling

the color was kind of grayish white and people generally didn't know and it was only until the bells started to ring that people knew that a pope had been elected.

Some bells, but not the bells that are designated as the appropriate bells that would indicate the election of a new pope. As a result, there is still uncertainty right now.

But now they've kind of refined the process and they're better with the colors. Because you see, in 2005, it was the first conclave since 1978, so they hadn't had much practice.

Well, so, who are the favorites? Who should we have our eye on?

'The thing about this conclave is that there's really quite a wide open field, and a lot of that has to do with the way that Francis changed the makeup of the College of Cardinals. He basically really internationalized the College Cardinals, appointed Cardinal from places that had never had the red hat before, Tonga, Mongolia, Central African Republic, Myanmar. So he's put in people who are... Not necessarily part of a particular block or faction. And it means that a lot of the Cardinals don't know each other as well. We've been told that the Cardinal's have been wearing name badges, so they can recognize each other. So that means there's a big element of unpredictability. I mean, I'm not trying to avoid answering your question. It's just, I think we should know that before predicting. And obviously there are a couple of front-runner contenders, people like Cardinal Parolin, Cardinal Tagley. Broadly speaking, Parolin is the unity candidate, Tagle is the diversity candidate. He's a former archbishop of Manila in the Philippines, very charismatic. So those are the two kind of front runners. And then there may be others who come into the mix. For example, the likes of Cardinal Prevost, who is in charge of the Vatican office for bishops. He was born in Chicago.

Hmm, American.

He's an American. There's also the likes of Cardinal Grek from Malta, who's been in charge of running the church's reform process, the synod. There's Cardinal Lopez Romero. He's Spanish, but he's working as a missionary in Morocco. And then there's other Cardinals from places like the Philippines. There's the Cardinal David. He's seen as possibly an outsider, maybe too young. And then, of course, there's the other Italian cardinals, Cardinal Zuppi, Cardinal Tobin, another U.S. Cardinal some people have talked about. So the field is really wide open, and the key thing is there's a first ballot, because then you see where the kind of early support is. That's where people show their cards, and they say if you've got 20 votes, then you're doing well in the first round.

Because then people kind of see, like, oh, somebody's leading. I might want to head over to his camp if it's kind of looking that way.

Exactly and that's how it works. So that's why conclaves can be quite quick. I'm not saying this is going to be quick but they're usually quite quick because you have the initial vote and then support then goes to the leading candidates and then it's a kind of two horse race and then one of them you know goes into the lead. So that's usually how it usually works but we just don't know how it's going to work out this time. And the kind of basic choice is do we continue, do the cardinals continue, with the Francis project, with Francis Reformers Vision, or do they try and slow things down and make a course correction?

'So Chris, before the break, you said the basic choice for these cardinals is, do we continue with Pope Francis's reform-minded vision or do we correct course in some way, slow things down? Can we dig deeper into that debate? Like how exactly is that playing out?

'So I think, on the whole, most cardinals appreciated Pope Francis's ministry, his ability to connect with people, his gestures to the poorest, his solidarity with the most marginalized people. So they all appreciated that. But there are some who didn't like some of his unpredictability, his decision to have a really important. Reform process in the Catholic Church as known as a synod where lots of questions about say the role of women and the exercise of power were opened up. I think for some of the cardinals they feel uncomfortable with that and we've already seen in the discussions one cardinal, a retired cardinal. He's already criticized Francis for kind of muddying the waters on who can exercise power in the church saying that lay people, non-ordained people can exercise power. There is this kind of feeling amongst a group called, broadly, the unity group, who want a sort of clearer, less unpredictable, safer papacy, who kind of sets out where things stand. And then there's the ones who are more in line with Francis, perhaps, or more enthusiastic about Francis's vision, who wants to continue in the way that Francis was.

Unity sounds like a code word to me, you know, because Francis has kind of really pushed the ball forward on a lot of major issues, like women in the church, LGBTQ members of the church. So, when they say unity, do they mean that they want to slow down some of that stuff? Like, how should we read those discussions?

Yeah, so I think unity is code for reign things in, and the other group of Cardinals who don't like unity are saying that unity is a code for uniformity, which one Cardinal told me would be the kiss of death for the Church.

What Pope Francis was so allergic to was, legacy sounds a bit like museum, you know. And he was very allergic to the museum notion of the Church. Very allergic.

The Cardinal Czerny spoke to me about the choice he feels is facing the Cardinals. He doesn't agree with the Unicy slogan, which he sees as superficially attractive, but fundamentally misguided.

We embrace and we rejoice in our catholicity, in our diversity, in our pluralities, in all our differences.

He wants a pope to emphasize the diversity and the catholicity of the church and the church on the ground which is operating in so many different parts of the world.

Unity itself is not a program. It, it can't be a policy

a program. It can't be a policy. And he says yes of course we've got disagreements and divisions if you like but you can't make unity your program because it won't take you anywhere.

The terrible danger is that if you make this your obsession, and if you try to promote unity as your primary objective, you end up with uniformity. And this is exactly what we don't need. We spend decades now trying to learn to get beyond uniformity to a true catholicity, a true pluralism.

Unity, but not uniformity?

Well, it's interesting the words are so close. But the difference is,

So I think that's the dividing fault lines at the moment. I mean, there is a small group who really do oppose Francis, but I see them as a kind of small group rather than a major force.

For the church, how much of this is just about remaining relevant to people, because there's been a lot of data looking into how religion, at least in the U.S., has just kind of been less important part of people's lives. For example, a study published this year by Pew Research Center's religious landscape study found that 62% of U. S. Adults identify as Christians, which is down nine percentage points from 2014. So, no matter who ends up getting picked as Pope... How much of that is an issue for the Church going forward?

Yes, I think that's a huge issue, and that's been discussed by the Cardinals, that really the fundamental role or mission of the Church is evangelisation, that is to try and connect the message of the church with people, as many people as possible. And I think Francis was a pope who connected with a whole range of different people, not just Catholics, and I think there is a desire amongst the Cardinalists to have hope who can connect. And who is not just someone who speaks to the kind of, the people just in the pews, because if the people in the pewse are no longer there, it's how do you connect with people outside? And so it is important to choose someone who has that charisma. But there is kind of something that happens when you are made pope, that sometimes people say, oh, he can't be pope because he's not very charismatic and he's, he's no very dynamic, et cetera. A lot of people thought Cardinal Bergoglio was quite door, that he never smiled. And then suddenly, he's Pope Francis and he's smiling every second and he is making all these things. Right, he is the people's Pope. Exactly, so you just never know when someone gets into that position how they're going to be. So there's that big element of surprise and unpredictability.

So you're really not gonna give us a prediction.

It is difficult. I'm sorry. I mean, I just, at this stage, it's very hard to say with certainty how this is going to go.

I was very happy with the last pope. I hope that it's also somebody that's tuned into this time rather than being so too much oriented towards the past.

I think we're going to see someone who will try to build on what Francis has done. I don't think we are going to a reversal. But there's always the danger that if you have someone who tries to slow things down, that effectively that becomes a reversal over time.

It's not like the Catholic Church is known for being particularly nimble in the best of circumstances.

No, that's the perception and I think Francis tried to change that and I think to a certain extent he did change that.

I think there's some things he probably needs to continue, but some things he needs to let God lead him in the way.

So I think that the changes he's made, as much as they are hugely significant, I think what's really significant about them is that they've opened the door to something. They've kind of signposted a way forward. And so they're not kind of the end of the story, like here's my five things I've changed and now the next one. Here are the doors that I've opened and it's up to the next person to go through. That's where we are with things at this conclave is whether the cars are going to decide to go through that door or close it.

Well, we'll see how it all shakes out. Chris, thank you.

Thank you very much David, appreciate it.

And just a heads up, this is a quick moving story. So Chris and I are going to be back in your podcast feed starting Wednesday evening with regular updates as this conclave unfolds. We're gonna bring you the very latest from the Vatican and give you a little more context around this hugely consequential moment. So make sure you're following the show wherever you listen so you don't miss it.

One Thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz, Grace Walker, and me, David Rind. Our senior producers are Felicia Patinkin and Faiz Jamil. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director, and Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Caroline Patterson and Wendy Brundage. I'll talk to you later.