INT. VATICAN PRIVATE SCREENING ROOM — NIGHT
Dimly lit. Ornate crimson velvet chairs. A massive gold-framed screen. George Stroumboulopoulos, Canadian icon and eternal seeker of cool, sits beside LENNY BELARDO — Pope Pius XIII — the Young Pope. He’s in full papal regalia, but barefoot, a cigarette dangling from his fingers.
GEORGE STROMBO
(leaning forward, excited)
So, Lenny — sorry, Your Holiness — you wanted to talk Immortal Technique?
POPE PIUS XIII (LENNY)
(smiles thinly)
Call me Lenny. We’re not in Rome right now. We’re in the Third World — at least, for the next six minutes and thirty-five seconds.
GEORGE
(chuckles)
That album changed people, man. “Dance with the Devil,” “The 4th Branch,” “Bin Laden.” Nobody wanted to say that stuff, but he did.
POPE PIUS XIII
He did what the Church stopped doing. He told the truth, even if it was soaked in blood and betrayal. You know, Christ flipped tables. Immortal Technique flipped entire worldviews.
(He presses play.)
The screen comes alive with a homemade video. It’s titled: “Third World: Red Dawn — Directed by Pope Pius XIII”.
🎥 VIDEO PLAYS:
“The 3rd World” by Immortal Technique blares.
The visuals are raw:
- Children scavenging through burning landfills in Guatemala.
- A U.S. drone dropping a bomb on a mud-brick home, then a quick cut to Wall Street traders clapping.
- A Catholic priest weeping over the body of an African journalist.
- A flashing phrase: “IF THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, WHAT DOES GOD WEAR IN THE SLUMS?”
Suddenly, we see LENNY himself — younger, more intense — walking barefoot through Darfur, handing out rosaries and portable radios preloaded with Immortal Technique songs.
LENNY (V.O.)
This is not poverty.
This is engineered scarcity.
This is not war.
This is debt with missiles.
Cut to the Vatican walls being painted over with graffiti: “THE POOR ARE THE TRUE CHURCH.”
Then a shocking image: a photo of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, edited with devil horns, next to Immortal Technique’s line:
“I’m from where they overthrow democratic leaders, not even the crack of dawn, just a red dawn for believers…”
BACK TO SCREENING ROOM:
The music fades. Smoke from Lenny’s cigarette curls like incense. George is visibly shaken.
GEORGE
Holy sh—
(swallows it)
That was… that was real.
POPE PIUS XIII
People think we’re in a post-colonial world. They’re wrong.
We’re in the Third World.
Only difference is some of us are deluded enough to call it “developed.”
GEORGE
You think a Pope should be showing this?
POPE PIUS XIII
I think a Pope should be making this.
Until the last shall be first — and the meek inherit something more than sand and silence.
GEORGE
You’re not the Pope the world expects, man.
POPE PIUS XIII
(smiling darkly)
No, George.
I’m the Pope it deserves.
They sit in silence. The only sound: a faint echo of a line from the song, looping faintly in the background…
“The Third World is not a place.
It’s a system.”