History Series / TheYoungPope

* CharacterCatchphrase: "I was joking" for Lenny, using it each time he confuses people with his statements or confessions.

It features a fictional [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope]], Pius XIII (born Lenny Belardo), the first to come from the United States of America, elected in his late forties, taking up the quest of revolutionizing the Church and UsefulNotes/VaticanCity while he's fighting his own personal crisis of faith.

It features a fictional [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope]], Pius XIII (born Lenny Belardo), the first pope from the United States of America, elected in his late forties, taking up the quest of revolutionizing the Church and UsefulNotes/VaticanCity while he's fighting his own personal crisis of faith.

''The Young Pope'' is a MiniSeries directed by Paolo Sorrentino, starring Creator/JudeLaw, Silvio Orlando, Cécile de France, Scott Shepherd and Creator/DianeKeaton. It is produced by Creator/{{HBO}}, [[Creator/{{Sky}} Sky Atlantic]], and Canal+, and premiered on October 21, 2016.

* CharachterCatchphrase: "I was joking" for Lenny, using it each time he confuses people with his statements or confessions.
** Lenny also frequently uses "I want to be very clear with you" and many variations thereof.

* CatchPhrase: "I was joking" for Lenny, using it each time he confuses people with his statements or confessions.

-->'''Cardinal Voiello:''' When?
-->'''Pius XIII:''' Later.

** Lenny's mentor was Cardinal Spencer, an ultra-conservative member of the clergy who it is implied is a traditionalist, possibly even anti-[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council Vatican II]], and basically the leading pillars of the conservative portion of the church. When Voiello and Spencer talk in Episode Three about the disaster that is Lenny as Pope, Spencer pretty much tells Voiella that he was intensely stupid to think that Lenny was anything remotely moderate, given that A) Spencer molded Lenny in his own image as his mentor and that B) The younger generation is ALWAYS more extreme than the older generation, meaning that Lenny's conservativism is not tempered by Spencer's own pragmatism in terms of having to bend in order to be a member of the clergy.

It features a fictional [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope]], Pius XIII (born Lenny Belardo), the first pope from the United States of America, elected in his late forties, taking up the quest of revolutionizing the Church while he's fighting his own personal crisis of faith.

''The Young Pope'' is a MiniSeries directed by Paolo Sorrentino, starring Creator/JudeLaw and Creator/DianeKeaton. It is produced by Creator/{{HBO}}, [[Creator/{{Sky}} Sky Atlantic]], and Canal+, and premiered on October 21, 2016.

* NiceHat: You do realize which church this show is about? In-universe the Papal Tiara is treated as majestic or at least seen that way by Pius XIII's antiquated views.

The miniseries got a {{sequel|series}} in the same format, ''Series/TheNewPope'', which premiered in January 2020.

It features a fictional [[UsefulNotes/ThePope pope]], Pius XIII (born Lenny Belardo), the first pope from the United States of America, elected in his late forties, taking up the quest of revolutionizing the Church while he's fighting his own personal crisis of faith.

* AntiHero: Lenny is a very complicated person and has many flaws that drive most of his action. The viewer is not expected to agree with him on much of anything, but he's still sympathetic.

** Voiello is a short, pudgy, balding man with a gigantic mole on his cheek who is introduced as an egotistical manipulator opposing our main character Lenny, teasing him as a villain. He later not only joins forces with Lenny, but proves to be a much more moral and sympathetic person than he appeared.
* BeingPersonalIsntProfessional: In the first episode, Lenny insists on having a strictly professional relationship with all of his staff and fires a cook who is too friendly. He then spends the rest of the show contradicting that rule, most notably in the very same episode when he makes his surrogate mother, Sister Mary, his primary advisor. In the final episode, he calls all of his staff together and tearfully tells them that he loves then all.

* CelibateHero: Lenny is so devoted to his vows of celibacy that many suspect that he is asexual, however [[spoiler: it is revealed that he briefly had a romantic relationship with an American girl as a teenager.]]

* CorruptChurch: Notably subverted. The Catholic Church is portrayed in all its complicity, but at the same times issues like homosexuality, paedophilia and power games among clergy are addressed as wrong and something that needs to be dealt with. By the ''clergy itself'', while their new pope just scoffs this off as semi-important at best.

* DisproportionateRetribution: [[spoiler: The drug lord killing Dussolier for sleeping with his wife. Ironically on the Old testament it would be lawful for him to kill both]].
* DoubleSubversion: Its heavily implied in the title, and with Lenny’s background, he could be a very liberal pope, despite having a notoriously conservative mentor. Then he turns out to be so extremely conservative that the more traditional members of the church start looking like moderates.

* {{Eagleland}}: Lenny is cocky, smug, prideful and outright reactionary person, acting in the most shortsighted way imaginable and always trying to use his authority to get things done his way. As a cherry topping, he also starts each day with a can of Cherry Coke Zero and is offended by the possibility of having anything else for a breakfast. Cardinal Spencer, who basically trained him as his protegee, takes it a step further, being extremely rude to everyone when things don't go as he envisioned - he goes as far as spitting grape seeds when talking with the pope.

* GoodAdulteryBadAdultery: In contrast with pretty much every other case of adultery in the show, the past one between Esther and Father Valente is potrayed sympathetically. Predominately due to being all about her getting more and more desperate with attempts to get pregnant.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCR1MQhwswM Discussed]]. Lenny strongly opposes abortion and believes the church should oppose it wholeheartedly, while Cardinal Michael Spencer believes only the termination of late term pregnancies counts as abortion. It's revealed that this issue is CloseToHome for Lenny, since his mother abandoned him at an orphanage.

* HeWhoMustNotBeSeen: Lenny invokes this on himself. [[spoiler:Until the last episode.]]

* {{Hypocrite}}: A defining feature of Lenny. He rails against mixing personal and professional relationships, then does just that. He tries to purge gays from the priesthood but keeps a gay priest as one of his closest confidantes. He tells the world that faith in God is the ''only'' thing they should concern themselves with, yet grapples with his own faith. He talks a lot of about love, but often seems only interested in punishment.

** He prays for [[spoiler: the nun withholding water from desperately poor Africans]] to face justice rather than removing her through his power in the church. She has a heart attack soon afterwards, which is taken as divine justice. However, people of her age do have heart attacks.

** In-universe, on par with papal tradition, Lenny names himself after a predecessor, in this case as Pius XIII. What makes it meaningful is that this serves as reference to Pius IX, X, XI and XII, all are known known for being both extremely conservative and infamous for their political decisions related to pre- and wartime Italy: Pius IX was the first person to introduce the “Non Expedit”, which Lenny himself threatens the Prime Minister with, while the largest group of Traditional Catholic -- a group who is against the changes introduced in Vatican-II -- named themselves after Pius X, and is still Canonically Irregular.
** Pius XIII's name is also ironic in that the name means "pious," while Lenny's faith is shown to be greatly conflicted to say the least.
* TheMerch: In-universe, apparently, the Vatican has an official line of merchandise that makes up a sizable part of Holy See income. Pius XIII decides to stop the line. This obviously doesn't stop everyone else but the Vatican making their own.

* MrFanservice: Played with. While Lenny is presented as eye candy for the audience, and is ''very'' smugly vain (up to and including his dressing for an address to his cardinals being set to Music/{{LMFAO}}'s "Sexy and I Know It"), he is nevertheless very committed to celibacy and is surprisingly absent from any of the show's sex scenes (the closest he gets to one is seeing Esther and her husband having sex, and going down on his knees to pray to God to give her a child).

* NoSocialSkills: Lenny is a curious blend of master manipulator and utter social klutz. He can threaten, browbeat and inspire fervent loyalty, yet many of his attempts at levity and normal social interaction fall completely flat. He's prone to say something incredibly rude and upsetting, then claim he was "only joking."

** [[spoiler:The last shot of the finale. On the ground in front of the real Pièta, no less.]]

** Cardinal Voiello embodies this trope, being a Vatican Secretary of State and playing political games for his entire life, while also being a trained diplomat. He is not evil per se, but is not above blackmail, lying, backroom deals and throwing the rotten apples out when it works for the good of the Church.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Cardinal Spencer delivers a few of those in his outbursts of anger. He is not above chewing up the new pope and his former protegee for acting like a 5 year old boy with a desire to let entire world suffer due to his personal issues. This impacts Lenny strong enough to have a nightmare in which he ''is'' a 5 year old, still in papal robes, chasing after his escaping parents.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: Lenny's punishes clergymen he doesn't like by forcing them to point to a random spot on a globe in his office and send them there. And when the spot isn't "far away" enough, he still sends them to Alaska. Routinely.

* StrawmanPolitical: Played with. The Italian Prime Minister seems to be portrayed as a strawman liberal, the most important parts of his political program being the legalization of common-law marriages, gay marriages, abortion, euthanasia and ending the tax cuts for the Church, but these are also very common views in Italy, and also the side the show itself takes.
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Despite Lenny getting away with lots of things, he still has few massive fumbles. Most notably, after giving a highly controversial, aggressive and outright reactionary address, Pius XIII causes a ''huge'' stir-up in the Church, both for clergy and laymen, which translates into a sharp drop in church attendance and general feeling of confusion. Cutting off anyone who isn't just as extreme as the leader never works well for any organisation. [[BadBoss Pius XIII]] openly ignores this as a real problem or something to take into consideration.

** Lenny's mentor was Cardinal Spencer, an ultra-conservative member of the clergy who it is implied is a traditionalist, possibly even anti-[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council Vatican II]], and basically the leading pillars of the conservative portion of the church. When Voiello and Spencer talk in Episode Three about the disaster that is Lenny as Pope, Spencer pretty much tells Voiella that he was intensely stupid to think that Lenny was anything remotely moderate, given that A) Spencer molded Lenny in his own image as his mentor and that B) The younger generation is ALWAYS more extreme than the older generation, meaning that Lenny's conservativism is not tempered by Spencer's own pragmitism in terms of having to bend in order to be a member of the clergy.
** RealitySubtext: Most seminarians actually enter with a rather conservative mindset; It's not just old nostalgic people who are traditionalists. However, there does exist two branches of Traditionalist (Society of Pius X and Fraternity Society of St Peter) who are growing in numbers among the younger generations of laity who attempt to adhere to things that were eliminated during Vatican-II, and have a longing for the pre-Vatican-II papacy, Church administration, liturgy, and canons. While officially speaking, SSPX is canonically irregular, not seeing Vatican-II as infallible council, while FSSP is in full communion and accept Vatican-II, in practice some FSSP priests do privately align more with SSPX in thoughts. In addition, being a fiction, it is possible that SSPX and Holy See agree to disagree, allowing someone like Lenny to be elected.

** The “Non Expedit” clause Lenny threatens the Prime Minister with. It refers to an event early in Italian history, when the Pope disallowed Italians from participating in the elections. It did not end well, for the Pope at least.

* RealityEnsues: Giving a highly controversial, aggressive and outright reactionary address, Pius XIII causes a ''huge'' stir-up in the Church, both for clergy and laymen, which translates into a sharp drop in church attendance and general feeling of confusion. Cutting off anyone who isn't just as extreme as the leader never works well for any organisation. [[BadBoss Pius XIII]] openly ignores this as a real problem or something to take into consideration.

The miniseries got a sequel in the same format, ''Series/TheNewPope'', which premiered in January 2020.

* YourCheatingHeart: Esther had an affair in the past with Father Valente, more for the sake of trying desperately to get pregnant than anything else.

* FatalFlaw: He is ''extremely'' vindictive and arbitrary, making sure to harm everyone who he doesn't like or is resentful towards.

** As a teenager, he prays over a dying woman, who then miraculously recovered. [[spoiler: This is told in flashback, making it a possible case of Unreliable Narrator.]] Recoveries of even terminal illnesses do, rarely, occur.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Cardinal Spencer delivers a few of those in his outbursts of anger. He is not above chewing up the new pope and his former protegee for acting like a 5 year old boy with a desire to let entire world suffer due to his personal issues. This impacts Lenny strong enough to have a nightmare in which he ''is'' a 5 year old, chasing after his escaping parents.