Pope Leo summons Hollywood to Vatican, but conservative stars conspicuously absent

Vatican officials cast Pope Leo XIV’s meeting Saturday with three dozen Hollywood and Italian A-lister cinema stars as “cultural outreach” by a pontiff who has long had a soft spot for film.

But in a papacy barely six months old, even small things can be a cultural Rorschach test – including the conspicuous absence of high-profile conservative stars at Saturday’s event.

Leo’s guest list included Oscar-winning director Spike Lee; two-time Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett; comedy director Judd Apatow; Mad Max director George Miller; Gus Van Sant, best known for directing Oscar winner Good Will Hunting; Abel Ferrara, director of Bad Lieutenant; award-winning actress and former Bond girl Monica Bellucci; and Oscar-nominated actor Viggo Mortensen.

“Cinema is a workshop of hope, a place where people can once again find themselves and their purpose,” Leo said, calling on those present to make cinema what he called “an art of the Spirit.”

Afterward, Blanchett said she would take to heart Leo’s call to “inspire and create those spaces” that create hope on screen.

The meeting is part of the Vatican’s wide-reaching 2025 Jubilee Year celebrations, and Vatican officials cautioned against assigning too much importance to the event because of the high-profile of the day’s participants. They also noted that Leo met earlier this month with acting great Robert De Niro and in June with Al Pacino, the first big-name cinema celebrity to meet with the pontiff.  

The meeting took place as the cinema industry struggles through another year of weak ticket sales. The overall sector remains around a fourth smaller than it was in 2019, the last full year before the coronavirus pandemic.

That is a situation Leo addressed in his remarks, when he said that “the art of cinema and the cinematic experience” were in danger.

 More than half a year into Leo’s papacy, it’s still not completely clear the ways in which the pope’s views align with his largely progressive predecessor, Pope Francis, or how they may match the more traditionalist views of Pope Benedict XVI, who preceded Francis.

For example, while Leo has endorsed traditional church teaching that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman, he has also told LGBTQ+ advocates he intends to continue Francis’ efforts to welcome people of all sexual preferences into the church.

The pontiff has also given mixed signals when it comes to the use of traditional liturgical symbolism pushed aside during Francis’ papacy as well as on issues like social justice, economics, and climate change.

To some, it was significant that leading conservative lights in the film industry like Mel Gibson (whose 2004 film The Passion of The Christ was a favorite of Pope John Paul II) , multiple Oscar winner Clint Eastwood, Oscar winner Jon Voight, and outspoken Oscar nominee James Woods were absent Saturday. But analysts brushed that notion aside.

“It’s true that Leo’s papacy has so far been a little harder to define than that of Francis or Benedict, I think the take-away from that is that defining his papacy in that way is not a priority,” Alistair Sear, a retired church historian, told Just the News. “For that very reason, I would say it’s a mistake to accord a great deal of importance to who and who came to the Vatican” on Saturday.

 In the leadup to Saturday’s meeting, Leo – a self-professed film fan – revealed his four favorite films: the 1946 Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life; 1965 Best-picture winner The Sound of Music; Oscar-winning family drama Ordinary People, from 1980; and 1997’s Life is Beautiful, the Italian holocaust comedy that won three Oscars.

 After the meeting, Blanchett gave the pontiff a bracelet symbolically associated with international refugee organizations she works with, while Spike Lee gave Leo a New York Knicks jersey with “Pope Leo” and the number 14 appearing on the back.

“The pope went to Villanova,” said Lee, a renowned fan of the New York NBA team. “And the Knicks have three players from Villanova.”