There Was Almost A Young Hot Pope IRL

HBO has the power to make pretty much anything kind of sexy, so it's no surprise that the network cast the ever-charming Jude Law as the pope. HBO's new series The Young Pope stars Law as Lenny Belardo, the Vatican first and youngest American pope, and though the show is filled with premium cable craziness, Law's looks are the thing that feels the least believable. After all, when we think of popes or people in positions of power in the church, we tend to imagine them as old — Pope Francis is 80, after all. However, according to showrunner Paolo Sorrentino's interview with Vulture, the prospect of a sexy pope is not quite as ridiculous as you might assume. When asked about the choice to make the pope look like the hero in a romantic drama, Sorrentino pointed to evidence of a hot guy who was high up in the Catholic church. He tells Vulture: "Father [Georg Gänswein] was the assistant of Benedict XVI. If you look him up on the internet, he was more handsome than Jude Law." Look him up I did... and the showrunner isn't exactly wrong about his good looks. Here's a photo of Father Gänswein from 2005:

We can't take the rest of The Young Pope's shadiness as fact, but this photo proves that the Vatican can boast of pretty people too.