VATICAN CITY – On Saturday, Pope Leo XIV extended a warm welcome to a host of Hollywood icons, including Spike Lee, Cate Blanchett, and Greta Gerwig, at a special Vatican gathering. This event honored cinema’s profound capacity to inspire and bring people together.

Addressing the assembly of filmmakers and stars in a beautifully adorned Vatican hall, Pope Leo urged them to utilize their cinematic art to amplify marginalized voices. He described film as “a popular art in the noblest sense, meant for and accessible to everyone.”

“Authentic cinema does more than comfort us,” he expressed to the audience. “It challenges us, raising the profound questions within us and occasionally evoking tears we didn’t realize we needed to shed.”

This event, orchestrated by the Vatican’s culture ministry, follows a series of similar gatherings under Pope Francis, where he engaged with renowned artists and comedians. The initiative is part of the Vatican’s broader effort to connect with the secular world beyond the confines of the Catholic Church.

The occasion held particular significance for Pope Leo, the first American to hold the papacy, who grew up during Hollywood’s golden era. The 70-year-old Chicago native recently shared his top four film picks: “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Sound of Music,” “Ordinary People,” and “Life Is Beautiful.”

Demonstrating his enthusiasm, Pope Leo spent nearly an hour after the audience personally greeting and conversing with each participant, a gesture he seldom extends during large gatherings.

Drawing applause from the celebrities, Leo acknowledged that the film industry and cinemas around the world were experiencing a decline, with theaters that had once been important social and cultural meeting points disappearing from neighborhoods.

“I urge institutions not to give up, but to cooperate in affirming the social and cultural value” of movie theaters, he said.

Celebrities just happy to be invited

Many celebrities said they found Leo’s words inspiring, and expressed awe as they walked through the halls of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, where a light luncheon reception awaited them after the audience.

“It was a surprise to me that I even got invited,” Spike Lee told reporters along the red carpet gauntlet in the palace.

During the audience, Lee had presented Leo with a jersey from his beloved Knicks basketball team, featuring the number 14 and Leo’s name on the back. Leo is a known Chicago Bulls fan, but Lee said he told the pope that the Knicks now boast three players from the pope’s alma mater, Villanova University.

Blanchett, for her part, said the pope’s comments were inspiring because he understood the crucial role cinema can play in transcending borders and exploring sometimes difficult subjects in ways that aren’t divisive.

“Filmmaking is about entertainment, but it’s about including voices that are often marginalized and not shy away from the pain and complexity that we’re all living through right now,” she said.

She said Leo, in his comments about the experience of watching a film in a dark theatre, clearly understood the culturally important role cinemas can play.

“Sitting in the dark with strangers is a way in which we can reconnect to what unites us rather than what divides us,” she said.

A ‘hit and miss’ guest list that grew

The gathering drew a diverse group of filmmakers and actors, including many from Italy, like Monica Bellucci and Alba Rohrwacher. American actors included Chris O’Donnell, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann, his wife.

Director Sally Potter said she was impressed that Leo took the time to speak with each one of them. And she said she loved his comments about the value of silence and slowness in film.

“It was a good model of how to be and how to think about cinema,” she said, noting especially Leo’s defense of “slow cinema” and to not see the moving image just in terms of algorithms.

Director Gus Van Sant said he liked Leo’s vibe.

“He was very laid back, you know, he had a fantastic message of beauty in cinema,” he said.

Archbishop Paul Tighe, the No. 2 in the Vatican culture ministry, said the guest list was pulled together just in the last three months, with the help of the handful of contacts Vatican officials had in Hollywood, including Martin Scorsese.

The biggest hurdle, Tighe said, was convincing Hollywood agents that the invitation to come meet Leo wasn’t a hoax. In the end, as word spread, some figures approached the Vatican and asked to be invited.

“It’s an industry where people have their commitments months in advance and years in advance, so obviously it was a little hit and miss, but we’re very pleased and very proud” by the turnout, he said.

The aim of the encounter, he said, was to encourage an ongoing conversation with the world of culture, of which film is a fundamental part.

“It’s a very democratic art form,” Tighe said. Saturday’s audience, he said, was “the celebration of an art form that I think is touching the lives of so many people and therefore recognizing it and giving it its true importance.”

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Visual journalists Trisha Thomas and Isaia Montelione contributed.

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