Mediated reality: Symbols, Fiction and Faith by Sara Cuscito

Mediated reality: Symbols, Fiction and Faith by Sara Cuscito

Synchronistic phenomena prove the simultaneous occurrence of meaningful equivalences in heterogeneous, causally unrelated processes; in other words, they prove that a content perceived by an observer can, at the same time, be represented by an outside event, without any causal connection. From this it follows either that the psyche cannot be localized in space, or that space is relative to the psyche. The same applies to the temporal determination of the psyche and the psychic relativity of time. I do not need to emphasize that the verification of these findings must have far-reaching consequences.”

― C.G. Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle
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Carl Gustav Jung

In an age such as the one in which we live, reality and media representation are almost inextricably intertwined, increasingly thinning their boundaries to the point of being almost imperceptible.
Beyond what can be interpreted as official or conspiratorial versions, the symbolic value of certain observations of reality is undeniable; seemingly random facts take on a synchronic value that suggests that something beyond is speaking to us.

On February 11, 2013, the day of Pope Benedict XVI's historic resignation, lightning struck the dome of St. Peter's, an event immortalized forever by a famous photograph. This event for many represented an omen of something that was about to happen, an ominous symbol underscoring the magnitude of that resignation.
On Jan. 26, 2014, during Pope Francis' Angelus, two children are invited to release white doves as a sign of peace. The two candid birds are attacked by a seagull and a crow, imprinting in the collective memory a scene charged with symbolism and violence worthy of the best films of the genre.
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On May 8, 2025, just before the white smoke that announced the election of Pope Leo XIV, a seagull on the ledge of a Vatican dome is immortalized regurgitating a mouse to feed its young. Once again, the scene suggests a crude but loaded symbolism of archetypal significance: nourishment, death, and regeneration take center stage on screen, evoking an eternal life cycle.
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The past fifteen years have witnessed an explosion of film products and TV series featuring the Vatican, the popes and the mysteries of the Church, reaching a pinnacle never before touched.
In 2016 Paolo Sorrentino gave space to this type of content with the celebrated series The Young Pope, which brings a conservative and authoritarian, albeit young, American pontiff to the screen. In contrast to Pius XIII we find John Paul III, the protagonist of the sequel series The New Pope, a refined and equally tormented English pope.

Sorrentino constructs an image of the papacy as a seat of spiritual, political and moral tensions.

The same themes are also at the heart of Edward Berger's 2024 film Conclave where a Mexican cardinal is elected pope. Thus we again witness a narrative pattern that features popes of unusual nationalities, an element that resonates with what was the situation at the last Conclave.
An even earlier example is the film Saving Grace (1986), directed by Robert M. Young, based on Celia Gittelson's novel of the same name, published in 1981. Again, the character of Pope Leo XIV appears in the film: the same papal name chosen years later, in 2025, by the real pope - thus further fueling that series of synchronicities and narrative overlaps that seem to bend the boundary between fiction and reality.

The most unique case, however, is that of Guillermo Amodeo's El Habitante, a 2017 Mexican film. Elected Pope is Pedro Natale: the name "Pedro" refers to Peter, the founder of the church, and "Natale" recalls rebirth. An extremely transparent symbolic name that emphasizes the desire for spiritual regeneration. And the names in this film do not seem random at all; in fact, in the first minutes of the film a news report announces the death of Pope Leo XIV, a detail that is striking in light of the election of Francis Prevost [1] who chose the very same name. Even more striking is that that title had not been chosen since the nineteenth century. In short, the choice of such an obsolete name that anticipates an actual event by eight years is hardly to be dismissed as accidental.
The name “Leo” carries an ancient, solemn resonance—evoking a distant era of power and authority. Choosing such a vintage, almost anachronistic name for the new pope instantly conjures up images of a remote, majestic past.
Politics also intersected with ecclesiastical reality, revealing a foreshadowing of what later translated into reality. A few days before the election of Leo XIV, Donald Trump shared on social media an AI-generated image of him in papal robes, stating that he would love to hold that office and emphasizing the credibility of an American pope candidate by referring to Dolan. In this event we see manifested not only a duality between politics and religion but also between entertainment and the sacred. And once again the media takes over from reality.
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I'd like to be pope. That would be my No. 1 choice. I must say, we have a cardinal that happens to be out of a place called New York who's very good, so we'll see what happens. [Trump was referring to Timothy Cardinal Dolan, archbishop of New York.] Somebody made a picture of me dressed like the pope and they put it out on the internet. That's not me that did it. I have no idea where it came from. Maybe it was AI. But I know nothing about it. I just saw it last evening.
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Prophecy and myth have always played a key role in the religious context, especially in the papal context, evolving over time and intertwining with elements of pop and media culture.
Today we are witnessing a new form of contemporary myth that shapes collective perceptions of hopes and fears.
In this light, prophecy loses its character as an announcement of future events and takes on a new one as a symbolic language that allows us to interpret the present and orient ourselves in what is the uncertain flow of history.
Film and television no longer merely narrate the world, but even seem to anticipate it. What at first glance might appear as coincidence actually turns out to be a play of resonances in which reality allows itself to be inspired and shaped, if not even guided. It is the real world that adapts to what is the fruit of our media production by replicating a hitherto fictitious reality, lets it walk and lie outside the screen creating a sometimes disturbing effect of apparent anticipation and foreshadowing.

The concept of synchronicity introduced by psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung describes the simultaneous occurrence of events linked by a relationship not of cause-and-effect but of shared meaning.
In the context of Vatican-related events, from the lightning strikes on St. Peter's dome to the choice of name to the premonitions offered in film products, synchronicity offers us a useful interpretive key since we can read these coincidences as part of a symbolic fabric that suggests a communication between reality and the collective unconscious.

The human mind is predisposed to accommodate certain archetypes and themes, creating a resonance that transcends linear logic. The stories we tell are thus intertwined with the stories we live by creating new ones in a reality that is the lived one.
When fiction seems to anticipate reality and reality seems to set itself up as fiction, the real question is no longer whether there is a direction behind the events but how much we are willing to see and interpret what is happening. 
For perhaps, as any good tale teaches, the truth lies not so much in the facts as in the stories that hold them together.

 [1] Prevost (from French "prévôt," Italian for "provost," i.e., ecclesiastical head or superior; from Latin "praepositus," "one who is placed in front") - nomen omen.

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