Hollywood stars met with Pope Leo
The list of movie stars and directors who met with America’s first pope on Saturday included Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, best known for “The Aviator” and “Elizabeth,” and Spike Lee, who directed “Malcolm X” and “BlacKkKlansman.”
The entire audience at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace finally met Leo in person, and Lee presented America’s first pope with a New York Knicks jersey.
On Saturday, Monica Bellucci, who played Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” also met with the pope, as did “Parks and Recreation” and “Discontinuation” actor Adam Scott, and Sergio Castellitto, who played the “vaping cardinal” Tedesco in “Conclave,” a film about the secret papal selection process.
“The Church honors your work with light and time, faces and landscapes, words and silence,” Leo told them.
“We hope to renew this friendship because film is a workshop of hope, a place where people can find themselves and their purpose again.”
The Vatican said the meeting was held to “deepen dialogue with the film community” and explore “the possibilities that artistic creativity brings to the mission of the Church.” It also comes as the church seeks to reach new audiences, with a new Gallup global poll showing a 17-point decline in the share of U.S. adults who say religion is important in their daily lives.
In a speech delivered in Italian, Leo also lamented the “alarming decline” of cinemas, saying they were increasingly being removed from cities.
“I urge institutions not to give up and to work together to affirm the social and cultural value of this work,” he said, to applause.
Ahead of the meeting, the Chicago-born pope listed his favorite movies as “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946), “The Sound of Music” (1965), “Ordinary People” (1980) and “Life is Beautiful” (1997).
The Rev. Antonio Spadaro, one of the Vatican officials who helped arrange the meeting, recalled that in every film Leo chose, “good looks fragile, naive, almost out of place, and that’s why it’s revolutionary.”
The Vatican meeting with movie stars followed a similar meeting Pope Francis hosted with comedians.
