I want to read the casting call for the clerics behind Voight. They look…perfect.

CBS has the better-known cast. A young-looking 42-year-old, the British actor Cary Elwes, plays Karol Wojtyla, as John Paul was originally known, until his election as pope, with Mr. Voight covering the 26-year-long papacy. Christopher Lee appears as Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, Poland’s hard-line anti-Communist patriarch, and Ben Gazzara is Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, the Vatican’s longtime secretary of state.

The ABC film, directed by Jeff Bleckner, has Thomas Kretschmann, 42, a Los Angeles-based German actor, playing Karol Wojtyla from his student days at the age of 19 to his death at 84, a transformation that in later scenes required makeup sessions lasting four hours. In this film, Bruno Ganz is Cardinal Wyszynski, while Joaquim de Almeida portrays El Salvador’s slain archbishop, Óscar Arnulfo Romero.

Still, while both movies appear to approach John Paul with due reverence, there is one fundamental difference.

"Ours does not avoid controversy," said Lorenzo Minoli, one of the executive producers of ABC’s "Have No Fear." "We show the pope’s confrontation with Romero over liberation theology. We deal with the sex scandals in the American church. We depict his youthful friendship with several young women and even show an innocent kiss while he is acting in a play. We show ‘the human man’ behind the pope."

And he added: "We are not making an Opus Dei movie. Others are."

Certainly, Opus Dei, the deeply conservative Catholic order, is deeply involved in the CBS film. It is being co-produced by Lux Vide, a company based here and led by Ettore Bernabei and his son Luca, members of Opus Dei who have close ties to the Vatican, which vetted their original script. The movie’s consultant, Alberto Michelini, is also an Opus Dei member; his son, Jan, the director of the movie’s second unit, was baptized by John Paul.

John Kent Harrison, the movie’s director, said the script he received from Lux Vide was based on faith, not politics. "Opus Dei objected to having politics, but we came to an understanding," he explained between scenes shot at a large college on the outskirts of this city. He also said there was no mention of the sexual abuse scandal in that script, "but I put in a scene."

Still, the Opus Dei connection has given CBS privileged access. For instance, Karol Wojtyla’s installation as archbishop was filmed in Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, where it actually took place in 1964. The filming was witnessed by the present archbishop, Stanislaw Dziwisz, who for 40 years was John Paul’s secretary and closest friend. CBS was even allowed to collect digital images inside the Vatican, including the Sistine Chapel.