Leo McKern credited as playing...
Cardinal Leone
- Kiril Lakota: [the shadow of the cross is on the Pope's empty chair during this exchange of dialog] Leone, how does a man ever know if his actions are for himself or for God?
- Cardinal Leone: You don't know. You have a duty to act. But you have no right to expect approval, or even a successful outcome.
- Kiril Lakota: So, in the end, my friend, we are alone?
- Cardinal Leone: Yes. I have seen three men sit in this room. You are the last I shall see. Each of them, in his turn, came to where you stand now, the moment of solitude. I have to tell you there is no remedy for it. You are here until the day you die. And the longer you live, the lonelier you will become. You will use this man and that for the work of the church. But when the work is done, or the man has proved unequal to it, you will let him go and find another. You want love. You need it, as I do. Even though I am old. You may have it for a little while, but you will lose it again. Like it or not, you are condemned to a solitary pilgrimage, from the day of your election until the day of your death. This is a Calvary, Holiness. And you have just begun to climb.
- Cardinal Leone: Do you accept election?
- [Kiril hesitates]
- Cardinal Leone: You must answer now. Do you accept election?
- Kiril Lakota: I accept. And may God have mercy on me.
- Cardinal Leone: By what name will you be called?
- Kiril Lakota: We choose to be called by our own name, Kiril. He was the saint that first brought the Gospels into our country.
- Kiril Lakota: Why were you jealous of him?
- Cardinal Leone: Because of you, Holiness. Because I needed, but could not have, what you gave him. Intimacy. Trust. Affection.