“Society Is Predictable”: Risk and Persuasion in Paolo Sorrentino’s The New Pope

The chapter revolves around the sociological complexity inspiring Paolo Sorrentino’s TV series The New Pope (2020), whose task is to develop some communicative insights featured in the first season of the series The Young Pope (2016). The purpose of the chapter is to highlight the relationship between religion and communication in the era of globalized faith and to emphasize some specific issues: incommunicability, physical and cultural discrimination, personalization of faith, terrorism and fanaticism. The fictitious handover between Lenny Belardo (Pius XIII) and John Brannox (John Paul III) is not only an innuendo on the current situation but also the metaphor of power cooperation between political and religious leaders. Against a backdrop of the shortcuts of a society in which mystery and faith are fading away. The middle way resides in the balance between rhetoric and truth, since “society is predictable”, despite the unfathomable destiny of human rage.