MUSIC IN EXPRESSING ANTAGONIZED VISIONS OF THE CONTEMPORARY PAPACY

Abstract

The article analyzes the role of music within antagonized visions of the contemporary papacy in film and television series productions by examining The Two Popes, The Young Pope, and The New Pope. Despite the growing body of literature analyzing the contemporary meeting between media and papal authority, little has been done to construct papal authority and music in films and television series. This study draws from film analyses and hermeneutics to investigate how the antagonized visions of the papal office are exposed through musical patterns. Referring to the two opposite approaches in exercising the papal office, one based on existential Catholicism and the second sourcing from the traditionally oriented God's Objective Law, we document and explore how music is marked by the dynamics and portraits of religious authority. We connect it with music's directness in understanding four distinct patterns of developing the antagonistic approach to portraying the papacy in films. These are as follows: dazzling pathos, exposing uncertainty, contrasting the element of life with the boredom of lifelessness, and contaminating popular music with a sacred or political context.

Headnote

Abstract: The article analyzes the role of music within antagonized visions of the contemporary papacy in film and television series productions by examining The Two Popes, The Young Pope, and The New Pope. Despite the growing body of literature analyzing the contemporary meeting between media and papal authority, little has been done to construct papal authority and music in films and television series. This study draws from film analyses and hermeneutics to investigate how the antagonized visions of the papal office are exposed through musical patterns. Referring to the two opposite approaches in exercising the papal office, one based on existential Catholicism and the second sourcing from the traditionally oriented God's Objective Law, we document and explore how music is marked by the dynamics and portraits of religious authority. We connect it with music's directness in understanding four distinct patterns of developing the antagonistic approach to portraying the papacy in films. These are as follows: dazzling pathos, exposing uncertainty, contrasting the element of life with the boredom of lifelessness, and contaminating popular music with a sacred or political context.

Key words: music, papacy, movie series, television platforms, antagonism, the two popes, the new pope, the young pope.

1.Introduction

Music links the religious with the political in a shocking way. When we analyze music in the context of religious experiences, we perceive its transcendental value; its ability to directly get to the recipient with a message from the absolute (Lang et al. 2016; Rouget 1985; Schumaker 1995). However, when we look at music in the category of authority, we perceive a powerful means of expressing political metaphors (Garratt 2018). Thus, music is a way of manifesting the presence of a certain ideology, which stresses the polarization of its supporters and adversaries.

When music refers to religion and authority, we naturally go in the direction of religious authority, which currently remains at the center of research on media, religion, and digital world. Here, a significant role is played by the dynamics of exercising religious authority (Campbell 2021), its contents (Campbell 2010; Guzek 2015; Evolvi 2019; Coman and Coman 2017), negotiating (Kołodziejska and Neumaier 2017; Kołodziejska 2018), and even contestation (Lundmark 2019). Studying the musical aspects in the context of religious authority is open to research.

In the Catholic Church, the increasing tensions due to traditions between pre-Vatican and Post-Vatican II groups center the issue of religious authority on identity and the agency of the bishop of Rome; the pope. As a result, the literature presents the pope in the role of a political actor, involved in the fight against social inequalities and poverty (Lennan 2016; Cloutier 2015; Puggioni 2016), as well as climactic changes (Landrum et al. 2017; Landrum and Vasquez 2020; McKim 2020; Li et al. 2016). On the sidelines of scientific literature are film and television productions about the modern papacy. Here, it turns out that music plays an important role; it expresses ideas related to antagonizing visions of politics and religion. Therefore, the growing interest in the contemporary papacy and lack of references to papal authority in the context of the music for film and television productions causes a problem in finding more information about it.

The purpose of this study is to understand the mechanism of emphasizing the antagonism between papal authority and music in current film and television productions. Benedict XVI's unexpected resignation from his office and the election of Francis as his successor introduced the Catholic Church to the dual papacy, which revealed tensions among various wings of Catholicism towards the papacy. The growing number of news media messages increasingly reveal the antagonistic nature of this phenomenon. Film and television productions available on platforms such as Netflix and HBO also provide their users with suggestive visions about the papacy and its current role in the Catholic Church and throughout the world. The only direct means of expressing these visions is the through music in these productions. A study of these musical themes thus provides the premises for understanding the perception of the papacy itself. In such a context, we pose a question about the ways of articulating antagonism using music in film and television productions on the contemporary papacy.

We will give an answer to this question by combining film analysis and hermeneutics. First, we will explain the theoretical basis of our deliberations, which concerns the issue of "antagonism" and apply it to the context of the contemporary papacy. Next, we will report on materials and study methods. Then, we will present four basic themes on antagonizing the papacy in the productions analyzed. Finally, we will discuss the results in the broader context of religious authority, discourse, music, and media. As this article is the result of cooperation between media studies and theology, we will also include the results of our analysis between these two academic disciplines.

2.Conceptualizing Antagonism

We see antagonism as the starting point in our attempts to understand papal authority as mediated in the music of film and television productions. We understand antagonism based on theoretical solutions related to the discourse theory (Laclau and Mouffe 1985; Laclau 1988). It is based on the distinction between political and politics (Schmitt 1995). Within its framework, the political designates the "ontological dimension of radical negativity" (Mouffe 2013, XI), while politics is reduced to "the ensemble of practices and institutions whose aim is to organize human coexistence" (Mouffe 2013, XII).

This division leads to the assumption that social life takes place due to conflicts among its participants, resulting from a natural difference of opinions, interests, and aspirations. The social order implies a consensus that it is impossible to reach a situation of full consent. However, a lack of consensus implies antagonism identified as a "confrontation between nonnegotiable moral values or essential forms of identification" (Mouffe 2013, 7). Laclau and Mouffe (1985) assume that antagonism causes a state of exacerbation of relationships, which separates a small step from denying opponents their raison d'etre. The victory of one side leads to its discursive hegemony.

We can place Laclau and Mouffe's approach in the context of global Catholicism, where there are many trends and positions regarding the pope and the way in which he exercises his papal office. The pope is the focal point of the dispute, which leads to antagonism between two mutually non-negotiable visions of the Church.

The first vision refers to the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). It implies an exclusive Catholicism, where the Church is a perfect community of believers in Christ, celebrating the liturgy in Latin and expressing traditional devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints (Lefebvre 1998). This perspective is far from the Catholic Church's participation in ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue. Within it, the world outside the Church is seen only as a missionary area that is to be included into the Catholic Church. On the other hand, the pope is the vicar of Christ on earth, the main person responsible to God for the Catholic Church and its teaching. It is the pope who upholds God's unchanging law.

The second vision arose as a consequence of the decisions of the Second Vatican Council. It assumes that a Christian's life is a pilgrimage in the context of specific social conditions (Słomka 2018). Salvation takes place within the Church and is organized according to God's logic to include Catholics, the followers of other Christian denominations, other religions, and even atheists (O'Collins 2008; Vatican Council 1965). According to this view, the pope's role is more one of being a leader in the perspective of the Gospel than an arbiter of orthodoxy. The Church's language is the liturgy in national languages, and it includes ecumenical dialogue.

3.Materials and Methods

In our search for ways to articulate antagonism present in the music in film and television productions, we made a deliberate choice to use analytical material. The data for our analysis comes from the Netflix film production The Two Popes (2019), directed by Fernando Meirelles and the two HBO series The Young Pope (2016) and The New Pope (2020), directed by Paolo Sorrentino. In the selection of material, we omitted two typically biographical productions, which, more than the problems of the papacy, focuses on the history and actions of Jorge Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis (in the series Francis, the Jesuit, directed by Beda Docampo Feijoo and the documentary Pope Francis: A Man of His Word, directed by Wim Wenders).

The Two Popes is a 125-minute adaptation of Anthony McCarten's The Pope, which was first staged in 2019 at the Royal & Derngate Theater in Northampton. Its plot is based on the changing relationship between Pope Benedict XVI, played by Anthony Hopkins, and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, played by Jonathan Pryce. The plot is based on Cardinal Bergoglio's attempt to resign as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, which was interrupted by Benedict XVI's announcement of his resignation from the office of the pope. The music in the movie is mostly compositions and arrangements by Bryce Dessner.

The Young Pope is a 10-episode miniseries written and directed by Paolo Sorentino. It tells the fictional adventures of the first-ever American pope who, motivated by extreme conservatism, closes the Vatican from contact with the rest of the world. The role of the young Pope Pius XIII was played by Jude Law. The music of the series is based on the works of Lele Marchitelli and includes compositions by John Taverner, Franz Schubert, Bela Bartok, Max Richter, and Henryk Mikołaj Górecki.

The New Pope is a nine-episode sequel to The Young Pope, whose plot takes place around the coma of Pius XIII and the choice of two new popes. Ultimately, the papacy is headed by Sir John Branox, played by John Malkovich, a representative of the papal middle path. The music of the series consists mostly of songs by Lele Marchitelli.

Our study was based on the combination of film analysis (Mikos 2014) and hermeneutics (Wernet 2014). In the case of the first method, we assumed that the film and television productions used as the subject of the analysis "enter into communication with their viewers," which leads to "differentiation between reception and appropriation, because that makes it then analytically possible to separate the concrete interaction between a film and its viewers from further appropriating the film, for example in a conversation with friends and acquaintance" (Mikos 2014, 410). The film is considered here in terms of the structure that conditions the reception of recipients through (1) content and representation, (2) narration and dramaturgy, (3) characters and actors, (4) aesthetics and configuration, as well as (5) context (Mikos 2014, 413).

On the other hand, the films' music is revealed in two of the presented structural patterns. Based on this, we analyzed the music of the researched productions using patterns no. 1 and 4. Pattern no. 1 is content and representation. In this, as well as simple sounds, music provides representations considered as "the production of meaning through language" specifically songs that are "organized into languages of different kinds to communicate meaningfully with others" (Hall 1997, 28). We also analyzed music according to pattern no. 4-aesthetics and configuration-which allowes the capture of musical sequences as tools to enhance specific associations and emotions. As Mikos (2014, 418) points out, these aspects "guide viewers, above all emotionally, through the story, transport them into particular moods, and steer their attention to individual aspects of the film image without their always being aware of it."

We supplemented the results of our analysis with hermeneutics, assuming that the analyzed film and television productions can be treated in terms of an exegesis (Ricoeur 2004), which aims to reveal the meaning of the text. Hermeneutics assumes sequentiality, excluding the context and taking the literal meaning of a text seriously (Wernet 2014). In the case of this study, it additionally focuses on the musical layer, respecting that the language of music, unlike text, remains completely unintentional (Adorno, 1998). Taking into account this specificity set the process of analysis and hermeneutics, which is based on multi-stage reception, assimilation, analysis and interpretation of the film's message as well as the specificity of both methods. Finally, we do not single this processes out in the article. We remain aware, however, that they affect its analysis, interpretation and conclusions.

4.Results

In order to understand how to antagonize papal authority with the help of music, we examined the film analysis and hermeneutically selected productions on streaming platforms. As a result, we established a group of four main features that build antagonization patterns based on the music and plot, including the musical associations that arise from them. These are showing pathos, exposing uncertainty, contrasting the element of life with lifeless boredom, and entertainment music in a sacred or political context. However, each of the patterns requires a separate description.

Showing pathos. As a rule, pathos is defined by different aesthetics and techniques. There are periods in the history of music known for increased use of pathos, namely German Romanticism. At the same time, the categories of pathos are visible in most of the legacies of European civilization in the form of specific motifs or fragments of larger musical works, regardless of whether they are Bach, Mozart, or Stravinsky. In the analyzed streaming productions, pathos through music turns out to be a mechanism that separates different theological worlds.

Wherever there is music full of pathos, the pope is portrayed as the vicar of Christ, who combines the divine and the human. The pathos introduced into the film's language scheme indicates the domination of traditional content and the lack of space for an existential approach. We then move into the area of aesthetics that imitates what is sacred and excludes what is secular and expresses the union between what is holy and the laity.

An example of this mechanism is the scene from The Young Pope (Sorrentino 2016, 0:36:33 to 0:38:03), in which cardinals waiting for the first joint audience are surprised by the successor of St. Peter in a tiara; a triple papal crown. John Taverner's "Song For Athene" is heard in the background and enhances the feeling of communing with the sacred, which causes surprise and disturbance among those present. The song was already massively exploited in television broadcasts during the funeral of Diana Spencer, the Princess of Wales. In fact, the College of Cardinals participates in an audience in the style of the pre-Vatican II Council. The music imposes a pattern here, which is then magnified by artifacts such as the sedan chair, the tiara, the pope's lavish liturgical attire, and his gestures.

The whole scene shows that the main character, Pius XIII, makes a discursive turn from the bishop of Rome and friend of the faithful to a pope participating in the divinity of Christ. Pius XIII, therefore, establishes a new hegemony, which the recipient can naturally consider in opposition to the post-conciliar pontificates, starting with Paul VI and including Francis. The music accompanying the appearance of Pius XIII indicates that he functions only in a strictly sacred dimension. His presence is dramatically different from the presence of cardinals: he plays the role of a quasi-god.

Pathos is, therefore, a sphere that signals the domination of the papacy in the traditional sense and the lack of space for discourse preferring the papacy as a humble spiritual guide. In addition, with the cessation of pathos, Pius XII's discourse becomes the central point, which confirms that from now on there is no "we" (in the sense of the pope, pluralis maiestatis), and that everything that was once open in the Church is now closed and no longer inclusive.

Exposing uncertainty. Another mechanism for expressing antagonism in the approach to the papacy is based on music that increases a viewer's uncertainty and anxiety. At opposite ends of the continuum of emotional responses to music are pathos and uncertainty. The first one unequivocally introduces the viewer to the context of the certainty that the observed scene of the film or series provides unambiguous knowledge of who is who and where the source of religious truth is. Meanwhile, the latter establishes the discourse's domination as to the pope's ambiguous position and his concern for everyday matters.

An illustration of this mechanism can be identified in the scenes of the election of Pope John Paul III in The New Pope (Sorentino 2020, 0:27:10 to 0:31:00). The music that gains momentum during the events adds a very human nature to the activities of the conclave: the cardinals electing, the consent of the elect, the elect talking with the cardinals, the meeting of the pope-elect with the faithful, and the dialogue in which the new pope shows his deep humility by living with the faithful. The cycle is accompanied by a marked acceleration of electronic music in the background. As a result, there is no issue about a pope, who has access to secret matters. The hegemonic discourse established by John Paul III strengthens the anxiety present in the music that articulates the thesis that everyday life is uncertain and requires experience rather than resorting to authorities who do not have a simple recipe for how to live.

Juxtaposing the element of life with the boredom of lack of life. In earlier strategies, the establishment of the dominant discourse and its accommodation in the plot took place through the dominant musical theme. At a later stage of the analysis, a pattern of the contrast of life emerges, which is lively, multicolored, and disordered. It also includes the lack of life, introducing certain boredom, a schematic lifestyle, and arranging the plot into a specific, rigid scenario. In the productions studied, it is easy to see this contrast regarding Francis's agency as a representative of life and the actions of his predecessors as popes deprived of life. The basis of this scheme is, therefore, the agency of a specific pope and the context of his functioning.

Figure 3, from The Two Popes, illustrates this mechanism as a flashback in several scenes from Buenos Aires and the Vatican from 2005 (Meirelles 2019, 00:03:00 to 00:04:00). At the beginning, strong and cheerful Latin music introduces the story of St. Francis of Assisi in an unconventional way presented by Cardinal Bergoglio. The scene takes place in the poor district of Buenos Aires, and Bergoglio speaks about St. Francis during the sermon. He enters into a clear dialogue with the faithful. It engages them to such an extent that it causes reactions ranging from applause to wailing. The narrative is interrupted by the news of the death of John Paul II. The next scenes, from the funeral of Pope Wojtyła, turn out to be the opposite of the images from Buenos Aires. The music is based on the singing-whishing of one person. The funeral liturgy is dignified and planned.

Juxtaposing the Latin music and lively community with the dignity of the funeral liturgy indicates that the latter is boring. In terms of hermeneutics, the music enhances the contents of the whole scene, showing not so much cultural differences but the fact that the Church in Europe is "dead." In addition, its dead state is associated with the consequences of the actions of the deceased pope. The music is broken by a monologue summing up the duality of John Paul II's pontificate. The point is that, on the one hand, Pope Wojtyła was open to human rights and liberation from communist despotism whilst on the other hand, he was closed and hardened in the Church's internal structure. At the same time, hardening should be understood as very carefully monitoring that bishops, theologians, and priests do not express views that are even only slightly different from the current trend.

Popular music in a sacred or political context. The last antagonization pattern is based on a sophisticated formula combining a ritual or actions of the pope and cardinals with seemingly out-of-context entertainment music. In other words, events that can be portrayed as a religious tremendum are ridiculed. It is a schema expressing irony towards religion considered both essentially and functionally. From the essential perspective, meaning communicating with the sacred, we are dealing with a plot, reducing events marked by a religious aura of great importance to cultivating a convention that is incomprehensible to people who do not belong to it. In the functional case, religion is primarily reduced to a political role. Religious actors are active participants in the political scene, and this is how they should be perceived.

The first of the diagrams (Figure 4), which concerns popular music in the context of events of great religious importance, is well illustrated by the conclave after the death of John Paul II, immortalized in The Two Popes. The procession of cardinals to the Sistine Chapel proceeds at the pace of the Litany to the Saints sung in Latin by a men's choir. Observers identify this with the traditional rite of the pope's election under the clear assistance of the Holy Spirit. During the deliberations, however, Abba's hit "Dancing Queen" replaces the Latin litany. The convention is completely changed. There is dissonance. The cardinals in their costumes perform with anointed gestures and appear as either a disguised group of people or as actors in an artistic performance.

This clash of music and images belonging to different worlds shows that we are watching an incomprehensible ritual, whose essence cannot be translated into modern language. However, hermeneutic conclusions suggest that the music brings out completely new accents to the voting ritual but does not ridicule it as artificial or purely decorative. These are not cardinals in disguise, they are simply actors playing in a good show. It is in this scene that the unintentionality and ambiguity of the language of music are exceptionally visible. It allows for content to be conveed that does not fit the message of the text.

The musical transition during the conclave stage from music fully appropriate to the conclave's atmosphere to popular music that creates a fun mood reflects the character of antagonism. It is a passage in time because the institution with its "out of this world" rituals is thrown right into the world by being expressed by a disco hit. Thus, the antagonism is now based on a dispute over the type of institution. A scene set in such a way ultimately questions whether this old institution and its conclave ritual, can find itself in the new world, or whether it is simply a fancy historical dress-up game.

The second diagram shows that popular music is capable of breaking the narrative of the pope's inept participation in the area outlined as politics. This is also well illustrated by the scene from The Two Popes, in which Benedict XVI and Cardinal Bergolio return to the Vatican by helicopter from Castel Gandolfo (Figure 5). The pope aims to stop another scandal involving the Holy See. The song "Bella Ciao" begins to dominate the background of his journey, indicating that the pope's activity is not important. This portrays the Italian beauty of life, enveloping both of them and setting the framework for their actions. At the same time, it indicates that Benedict XVI feels less at home in this framework. On the other hand, Bergoglio fits perfectly into it. In this scheme, the politics resulting from the institutionalization of religion and the pope's leadership in the Vatican clearly loses its importance. The priority is an Italian lifestyle in opposition to the hectic actions of the papacy.

5.Discussion and Conclussion

The patterns we have selected to research on antagonizing papal authority are characterized by diversity in the relationship between the textual layer, which is written in the script, and the musical layer. We are dealing with separate and at the same time related languages which, according to earlier observations by Adorno (1998; 1993), operate with separate logic and dynamics.

The language of music in the analyzed films emphasizes the existing religious antagonism, but due to its specificity, it does not "cut" it into a clear discursive framework. Therefore, we can notice that, in contrast to Garratt's (2018) findings, the language of music is not primarily a vehicle for political metaphors because its foundation is not verbal. At the same time, it is impossible to deny the presence of such metaphors.

It turns out that to describe religious antagonism, such as that manifested inside the Catholic Church, where the figures of Francis and Benedict are points of reference and allow articulation of the dispute, the language of music is not just a supplement to the verbal layer. Music brings out and communicates much more about this dispute than words can convey. This dispute takes place not only in the rational and argumentative sphere-its basis is beyond what is rational. Similar results, visible in the analysis of the relationship between Iranian music and the piety (Hemmasi 2017), prove that it is a universal mechanism. Its basis lies in the tension that music can immediately convey in the context of the dispute between tradition and modernity.

Moreover, since the musical layer is the dominant area for expressing the analyzed materials, the possibilities of a discursive approach to the studied film productions turn out to be problematic. The musical layer is basically "fully enigmatic" (Derrida 1973, 75). Music takes films' messages beyond the logos; therefore, its analysis using words and analytical tools needs to be aware of its structural limitations.

Taking into account music's specificity, we notice that its directness in articulating religious experiences (Lang et al. 2016; Rouget 1985; Schumaker 1995) also translates into the directness of the experience of religious dispute. The musical message offered in the examined film material is not a supplement, background or simply a reinforcement of the verbal message, but an indispensable element of the whole work and a separate stage for antagonism.

From the perspective of discourse theory, which is characterized by a macrotextual and macrocontextual approach to the studied areas of social reality (Carpentier, De Cleen, and Van Brussel 2019), this is not an obstacle. The musical message can be easily incorporated into the corpus of articulation, and as a result, it is suitable for analysis. The problem is that music as such is non-colored (Crisp 2012) and unintentional (Adorno 1998). The discursive turn that occurs through the articulation of music is, therefore, a form of building immediate tension in the recipient and a change of perspective. It is definitely more contingent than the text. It also fails to reflect how certain actors deliberately establish a new hegemonic discourse within the film (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). In its place, it only allows a reflection of the change that occurred immediately in the agents, their discourse, and the environment.

This non-analogous content is particularly important when showing religious antagonism. Unlike works that tackle current issues at a key point in history (DeSilva and McGuire 2021), the dispute takes place here and now. It has many trajectories that are characterized by great dynamics. When analyzing the text layer of The Young Pope, Kennedy (2020, 296) rightly notes that "so much of what happens in Pope Pius's papacy during the miniseries is unpredictable and unconventional." Including the musical theme further broadens this dynamic by communicating an independent narrative about the papacy.

Referring to Derrida (1982), when we treat a religious dispute about the Catholic Church as an experience in the Husserlian sense, it is covered differently by the language of music than by using words. Music is a varnish of a different color and not only passively transmits messages but also processes them. This processing and creation of "meanings" cannot be reduced to the verbal layer. At the same time, it is an expression of the dispute that goes far beyond its rational explanation or writing out arguments.

From this point of view, the four principal mechanisms by which music funds or amplifies religious controversy correspond to varying degrees with previous findings by researchers.

The pattern of showing pathos is one of the key ways of portraying religious content and productions related to the Bible (Meyer 2015). While its primary function was to create an aura of historical authenticity, it was also important to emphasize the majesty of God and the drama of the believers. For example, this is done by portraying scenes from Christ's crucifixion. Another example of a classic production exploiting the topic of papal authority is Franco Zeffirelli's Brother Sun, Sister Moon, which concerns the story of St. Francis of Assisi. The cited work uses pathos in the scenes of the meeting between St. Francis and Pope Innocent III. Pathos helps to express the drama and importance of the meeting with Christ's vicar on earth. As we can see, then, unlike the films that are the subject of our analysis, pathos stabilizes the discourse of authority as a function in earlier works.

Also, exposing the second scheme, uncertainty, has so far appeared in the context of papal authority as an apologetic measure. Subsequent productions and co-productions of the RAI (the national broadcasting company of Italy) devoted to the lives of popes-John XXIII: The Pope of Peace, Pope John Paul I: The Smile of God (directed by Giorgio Capitani) and Karol: A Man Who Became Pope (directed by Giacomo Battiato)-highlighted the theme of terror and uncertainty during subsequent conclaves. However, while these films emphasized the transformation of the main character from fear through acceptance and affirmation, the current productions indicate uncertainty as a characteristic of the context that the new pope will have to deal with. The music in the analyzed productions reflects the turbulence of the present times.

Contrasting the element of life with boring lifelessness also assumed an apologetic function in Karol: A Man Who Became Pope. That movie shows that the future pope from Poland is a hero who is not afraid to ride on a straw cart to receive his bishop's consecration. Through this element, the viewer receives a naive message that he, too, was just someone from the crowd. At the same time, in the analyzed research material, this procedure is completely abandoned. Instead, the life and death perspective expresses the Catholic Church's condition.

On the other hand, the popular music in a sacred or political context shows that the Church's language and the way it expressed the importance of its religious experiences has lost the ability to be understood and is now looking for new forms of articulation. Antagonism here is a symptom of a clash between cultural formations, such as traditional Christian civilization and postmodern popular culture. Thus, the discussed patterns indicate a clear action of music in order to change the discourse from articulation focused on an outstanding individual to articulation expressing the condition of the entire religious institution.

Acknowledgement

This article is published free of charge.

It was written as an outcome of the project "Papal Authority Transformed by Changes in Communication" funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (no. 2019/35/B/HS2/00016) under the scheme Opus 18.

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