“Presence Is Absence”: Communication and Rhetoric in Paolo Sorrentino’s The Young Pope

The chapter aims at highlighting the relationship between communication and rhetoric developed by filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino in The Young Pope (2016). This TV series is inspired by the religious and sociological complexity within the Vatican State. To the fore is the anti-communicative policy triggered by the Pope, Pius XIII, who is firmly convinced that “presence is absence”. Hence follows the juxtaposition between him and media shaping a world overwhelmed by symbols, images and narrations. His peculiar behaviour stems from by a rhetoric “in reverse” that ought to bestow old values upon the Church, in a time of scandals, intrigues and misconducts that have tarnished its public image. As a result, the purpose of the chapter is to probe a communicative strategy founded on decadence and absence, in the era of hyper complexity.