INT. DESERT CHAPEL — TWILIGHT
A battered chapel made from scavenged metal and bone stands in the middle of the wasteland. The crucifix is welded from exhaust pipes. A dust storm howls outside.
POPE PIUS XIII (LENNY BELARDO) sits in his immaculate white cassock, untouched by the dirt around him. MAD MAX enters, his leather armor covered in sand, eyes squinting through the dying light.
LENNY:
Tell me, Max… where have all the men gone? The golden youth I was promised—pure, strong, virile—now paints its nails and calls itself “fluid.” Why do they flee from the cross, from manhood, from womanhood?
MAX:
(half-smirking)
The world changed, Your Holiness. The engines roared too long. Too much smoke, too much noise. Maybe they’re just tired of the same road.
LENNY:
Tired? No. Lost. They are shepherdless lambs, dazzled by the glitter of confusion. The Church offered water. They chose gasoline.
MAX:
Gas burns brighter than water. You can’t preach to a generation raised on sparks. They don’t want commandments—they want fire.
LENNY:
Fire destroys. Love creates. The Creator made man and woman in balance—
(pauses, then looks directly at Max)
—but the modern world worships imbalance. Lust without love. Identity without duty. Freedom without virtue.
MAX:
Virtue doesn’t keep you alive out here.
(leans on a rusted pew)
Out here, it’s whoever can drive fastest and fight hardest.
LENNY:
Then perhaps that’s the real sin—confusing survival with salvation.
(sighs, almost tenderly)
The golden youth could have been saints, Max… instead they became ghosts, chasing pleasure in a desert of meaning.
MAX:
Maybe they just don’t want to die for someone else’s idea of “holy.” Maybe holiness needs a new road.
LENNY:
(stands, his eyes fierce)
Holiness doesn’t need a new road. It needs a new driver.
No matter what the AI believes about transexuals, they can not give birth and are not real women.