A surprising pleasure. I didn’t like the idea at first: an American Pope who smokes and shocks the wicked stupid Europeans, it seemed a Nuns on the Run/The Pope Must Die-tier concept and I grimly braced myself for political correctness and grotesque diversity and niggertude.

It begins with Jude Law’s new pope, Lenny Belardo, recoiling from the prospect of giving a public address. Shenanigans ensue as the various cunning Italian cardinals plot to manipulate or depose him. In the background, a child abuse scandal and Belardo’s own emotional problems as an abandoned orphan.

To my pleasure & surprise, the new Pope becomes increasingly badass & traditional, to the point where I wondered how this TV show made it on air – presumably, it was marketed as satire or subversion. The characters are all highly likeable, my favourites being the Cardinal Secretary of State Voiello and of course the Pope himself, who wishes to root out homosexuality and vice.

I’m unsure to what degree the show was intended to subvert and attack traditionalism. Pope Lenny is charismatic, theologically homophobic, chaste, and can work miracles through prayer; but he also doubts the existence of God, and has periodic bouts of Luciferan pride.

In any case, while it is most likely heretical and unsound, I enjoyed it immensely. Anyone who wants to see visionary surrealism and aggressive smoking in the Vatican would be well advised to give it a go.