Pope Leo XIV: Cardinal inside conclave makes shock comparison to award-winning movie

As the Catholic church and faithful around the world celebrate the election of Pope Leo XIV in Rome, one cardinal who was in the famous conclave during the vote has given a candid insight into the process, comparing it the the Academy award-winning movie.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who is the head of the Catholics church England and Wales, has told the world press that the whole process could not have been further from the actions played out in the famed movie..

“I found it very refreshing and I found it more like going on a spiritual retreat than anything else,” Cardinal Nichols said.

“There was this sense of here was something of a sacred space and within that space it was possible to, at a very profound level, just be myself.”

Cardinals were effectively locked into the chapel and surrounds in Vatican City, and were aware they would remain there until a new pope was announced.

All contact with the outside world was removed, and for the first time, many present spent days without their mobile phones.

While the 133 cardinals cast their votes behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, they were sequestered a short distance away in the nearby Santa Marta guesthouse.

“I went into each meal and just sat down where there was a chair, next to whoever it was. I didn’t get a sense of people trying to gather in clusters or in pressure groups or any of that,” Cardinal Nichols said.

“And at no point did I feel there was the slightest bit of rancour or somebody trying to promote themselves or even block somebody else, unlike the film.”

He described it as a “lovely and congenial and fraternal time together”.

“And I think every cardinal would attest to that, even those who didn’t disagree particularly with the drift of things,” he said.

Conclave the movie which was released late last year, just months before the real-life secret meeting of cardinals in Rome this week, imagined the tension, bureaucracy, twists and turns behind the secret meeting to elect a new leader of the Catholic Church.

The film, based on the novel by Robert Harris, focuses on British actor Ralph Fiennes as the Dean of the College of Cardinals who must contend with scheming clerics and threats from outside as he tries to find the best person to take over the papacy.

Also starring Hollywood actors Isabella Rossellini, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow, the film picked up four Baftas for outstanding British film, best film, editing and an adapted screenplay prize for British writer Peter Straughan - who also received an Oscar for his work.

But while there were scenes of cardinals gathering in groups as they pitched for one candidate over another, Cardinal Nichols, from Liverpool, indicated this had not been the case this week.

With AAP.