Hmm …

… Popes in fiction: What do they say about us? | America Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Few could imagine a powerless papacy today, as well, unless they point to the office’s relinquishing of power. Pope Francis has disarmed the chair of St. Peter of pretense, bluster and certainty—in contrast to another fictional pope—the one played recently by Jude Law in the often obnoxious and mercifully limited series, “The Young Pope,” on HBO. Paolo Sorrentino, who writes and directs the series, made his reputation creating films about loan sharks, mafia bosses and rock stars. It is ironic—though no less ironic than Catholic support for the current U.S. president—that the antireligious, antifaith vision of Sorrentino appeals to some neoconservatives in the church today. They enjoy the fictional Pope Pius XIII’s refusal to speak to the modern world. We imagine the popes we want.

Well, Pope Francis seems pretentious and blustery enough to  me, and I don't think it's my imagination. But then my religion is not progressive politics — or any other politics.