The story of a pope in the 9^th century…and the men who loved her.The life and legend of Pope Joan.

2015 Finalist

Finalist 2015 Courier Awards

SYNOPSIS:

We’re in Rome. The year is 858 A.D. A procession of bishops, cardinals, and ornately robed religious royalty is wending its way toward St. Peter’s Basilica. Led by Pope John Anglicus VIII, known as John The English – he’s been a beloved pope for two years. Suddenly, John falls ill. He topples to the ground on a narrow street. To their horror, the gathered crowd discovers not only is the pope a woman, but she’s in the throes of labor.

Cradled in the arms of her lover, the monk Adrian, the pope and all her secrets are laid bare, in full view of an hysterical crowd gone mad at what they’re witnessing.

Fall back in time. We trace the beginning of the legend of Pope Joan from her childhood. As a young pagan she gains a burning hatred of Christians: they kill her mother in front of her. She vows never to forget or forgive. Then as a precocious adolescent who learns to read (a death sentence that, when revealed, she narrowly escapes). Johanna von Mainz is forced to begin an epic quest to find her father and the monk she falls in love with. Johanna is separated from them, they’re seemingly lost to her forever by the man who becomes her lifelong enemy; the wealthy, treacherous churchman, Sergius.

She fights her way across a savage pre-Europe disguised as a wandering monk, along the way this spirited woman-child gathers an army of fiercely loyal Vikings, Pagans, and hordes of disenfranchised poor. The trials she goes through, horrific and tender, causes her hardened soul to change; fitfully, reluctantly, a faith deeper than any religion is born. But nothing dampens her purpose to get to Rome, to find her father and her lover. She comes face-to-face with her greatest foe, Sergius, now a powerful bishop. A final, violent battle of conviction and belief. She must choose between two sides of one blade: that of revenge or forgiveness.Her decision leads to her ultimate fate on a narrow street.

This young woman’s incredible rise to the papacy is not simply rooted in the Dark Ages, but is a timeless struggle of someone who wanted it all: God, love, family, wisdom and, yes, power. Many have paid the highest price with their lives for trying to make those dreams real, but none have been so completely erased from history as the woman pope.

Based on the novel by Nelson Clark

THE WOMAN POPE

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