Just how dirty can politics in the Holy See get? No one knew until The Young Pope and The New Pope brought Angelo Voiello, portrayed by Silvio Orlando, to the screens. Voiello is probably the smartest TV politician of all time if you consider the delicate environment he operates in and how easily he wins against the Vatican's enemies.
Voiello knows the darkest secrets of everyone in the Vatican, but no one seems to understand him. He never makes his intentions obvious either and doesn't seem to create any close friendships with anyone because "he doesn't want to fall in love." Lenny Belardo's election as pope was a huge test of his intelligence, and some of his plays proved to be dumb, although he is still a reliable protector of the Vatican.
10 Smart: Abandoning The Plan To Blackmail Lenny
"I have been training all my life to become an invisible pope," Lenny Belardo (Jude Law) said immediately after the Conclave elected him to become the first American Pope. Being a young and handsome pope, Voiello was ready to introduce a new face of the church to the world, which is why Lenny's announcement shocked him so much.
With the church losing members and money and every media outlet angry at the pope, Voiello was right to come up with a plan to save the church but blackmailing the pope with a sex scandal was stupid. Voiello realized that the plan wouldn't just hurt Belardo; it would hurt the whole church causing the world to lose faith in the papacy.
9 Dumb: Lenny Belardo's Election
"Because that is the enormous error they committed, they chose a pope they didn't know." Were the harsh words of Pius XIII after his election. In truth, the words should have been"Voiello chose a pope he didn't know."
Cardinal Spencer and Voiello couldn't agree on who should become the pope so they chose a man they both thought they could control but they were wrong. Voiello never took his time to understand Belardo, who was obviously more conservative than Spencer. It was the first time in many years that Voiello no longer understood his boss.
8 Smart: The Truce With Pius XIII
Pius XIII was a hard pope to serve, but with time, you come to understand that all he wants ed was what is good for the church. Pius XIII's perfect church was very different from what Voiello could tolerate, which is why the two found it so hard to get along.
Voiello is a diplomat who became the longest-serving Secretary of State of the Vatican by controlling the pope, but now he realized that he would have to obey the pope for the first time in many years. When he decided to give Pius XIII a chance, he prevented further turmoil and, of course, retained his position in the Vatican, which would allow him to keep Pius XIII in check whenever he strayed too far.
7 Dumb: Agreeing To A New Election
When Pius XIII went into a coma, the Papacy was thrown into turmoil once again because the church had a pope that wasn't really a pope, a position Voiello had never been in before. He was obviously unsure of what to do because Pius XIII had just regained the love of the faithful, with a huge number believing that he was a saint.
After witnessing all those miracles that Pius XIII had done, Voiello should have believed for once that he was not dealing with a normal pope. Bauer's advice to conduct a new election was rush, and electing a new pope with Pius XIII still breathing would definitely end in disaster, and it did.
6 Smart: Bringing Brannox To The Vatican
John Brannox, despite his many faults, was the smartest choice for a pope that Angelo Voiello made since Lenny Belardo. For the first time in the show, Voiello chose a man whose history he knew well enough, except he didn't know how to convince him to come to the Vatican.
The time with Brannox in England brought out the best of Voiello's tricks as a diplomat when he was able to convince the one man smarter than him to bend to his will. The lie about Brannox's potential opposition was cooked so well, convincing Brannox that the fate of the church was really at stake.
5 Dumb: Vigletti's Election
When Lenny Belardo was elected pope, Voiello was convinced that the Holy Spirit had illumined the conclave because he didn't think Lenny could win. All Voiello wanted was a weak pope that he could manipulate and who wouldn't introduce radical changes in the Vatican.
However, he made the same mistake by judging his candidate based on appearance when he chose Vigletti to break the conclave impasse. Unlike Belardo, who was reasonable in his reign, Vigletti quickly turned the church upside down and converted the Vatican into a refugee camp. Vigletti's failed papacy as Francis II was Voiello's eye-opener because it almost destroyed the Vatican.
4 Smart: Taking Down Spalleta
Voiello never had any real competition as Secretary of State because even his enemies know he is the best Secretary the Vatican has ever had, but Spalleta didn't. Voiello never liked it when other people knew the pope's secrets that he didn't know about, which is why he hated Spalleta so much.
Spalleta was also a dangerous man, though, and his alliance with the Italian Minister of Economy was going to bankrupt the Vatican unless Voiello did something. With Bauer and Sofia's help, Voiello dug into Spalleta's secrets and found the most damning of all. The sweetest part was his execution of the terms of surrender to the one man that ever decided to go to war directly with Angelo Voiello.
3 Dumb: Resigning
Voiello told Pius XIII in The Young Pope that he was the longest-serving Secretary of State in the Vatican because he always protects the pope. As far as Voiello was concerned, protecting the pope's secrets and the Vatican is his job. When John Paul III bent to Spalleta's will and asked him to resign, Voiello didn't even fight back.
He just folded, leaving the pope and the Church exposed. His play of shipping Hernandez, his archenemy, to Kabul before resigning showed that he was still concerned about John Paul III's independence. It was still wrong of him to leave the pope and the church in the hands of a bad cardinal like Assente.
2 Smart: Taking Down Assente
Spalleta was comfortable with Assente as the Secretary of State because he didn't care about the Vatican. Assente was a bad cardinal and the worst Secretary of State any pope could hope for, though, which is why he had to be taken down. His mistreatment of the nuns and double life was turning the Vatican into a little hell for the nuns and the orphans.
Voiello obviously knew Assente's secrets and weaknesses, but he didn't have the evidence he needed to bring him down, hence the trick with the nuns. Getting Assente to incriminate himself on audio and forcing him to leave the Vatican was one of Voiello's greatest victories in The New Pope.
1 Dumb: His Own Election
In The Young Pope, Voiello lost the conclave because he couldn't convince the cardinals that supported Spencer to sway and vote for him. However, he accepted that it was for the best when he didn't become the pope because he was better at politics, not the papacy. He was actually right; the best way for him to protect the church is to be the Secretary of State.
In The New Pope, that same half of the Conclave wouldn't sway from Hernandez, and Voiello stayed as the pope's protector. He pulled off the final trick to taking the papacy when he shipped Hernandez to Kabul, effectively eliminating opposition in the Vatican. In the finale of The New Pope, Voiello is the pope, except he doesn't have anyone to watch his back since everyone, including Sofia, has left.
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