As “part of the Vatican’s
efforts to reach out beyond the Catholic Church to engage with the secular
world,” Pope Leo spoke with actors and directors on November 15, 2025 about the
ability of film “to inspire and unite.”[1]
He spoke to the filmmakers about film itself as an art, and what it can do
socially. What it can do in a distinctively religious sense was oddly left out.
I submit that leaving out how film can contribute to spirituality wherein a transcendent
is explicitly included while stressing the social functions of film not only
limits the potential of film, but also ironically marginalizes a significant potential
of film.
Speaking generically about the
medium of film, Pope Leo stated that it “articulates the questions that dwell
within us, and sometimes, even provokes tears that we didn’t know we needed to
shed.”[2] There
is nothing distinctively religious or spiritual about these features of movies.
Two of the pope’s favorite movies, “Ordinary People” (1980), which was filmed in
the pope’s hometown, and “Life is Beautiful”(1997) are known for their psychological
dimension. In fact, neither film includes anything religious or spiritual. Since
the time of Freud, it has been tempting to reduce religion to psychology, or
conflate the two distinct domains as western societies became increasingly
secular.
In his talk, the pope went so
far as to make a political statement regarding the ability of film to not
merely console, but challenge by including marginal voices. In its “noblest
sense,” the “popular art” of motion pictures is “intended for and accessible to
all.”[3]
Rather than urging theater-owners to make more of an effort to lower admission
prices for poor people, the pope was advocating that different points of view,
presumably on social, economic, and even political matters, be included in screenplays.
To be sure, such a function of film—to widen popular debates to include more
perspectives—would be of great value to a society, given the phenomenon of “group-think,”
which George Orwell discusses in his book, “1984.”
Nevertheless, for a religious leader
to give such an emphasis to secular concerns, including “affirming the social
and cultural value” of people watching movies together in a movie theater, has
an opportunity cost in terms of the foregone benefit that a talk on the potential
of film to “do” and even reflect on theology would have. Even in saying that “It’s
a Wonderful Life” (1946) and “The Sound of Music”(1964) were two of his other
favorite films, the pope did not mention films that are centered on the Gospels,
such as “The Greatest Story Ever Told” (1965), “The Passion of the Christ”
(2004), “Jesus” (1999), “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988), “King of Kings”
(1961), and even “The Nativity Story” (2006) and “Ben-Hur” (1959). “Jesus of
Nazareth” (1977), albeit a television mini-series, though with astounding cast,
was undoubtedly formative for the pope, and me too—both of us having grown up in
the late-1960 and/or 1970s in two adjacent northern regions of Illinois, where the
long, cold winters were conducive to teenagers going to the movies. There is only so much sledding a person can do
in flat Illinois, and cell phones and the internet did not exist. That the advent
of computer technology has made going to a movie theater, and thus being together
with other people albeit in a dark room and mostly in silence, optional. The pope’s
nostalgia in addressing filmmakers in 2025 came with a cost.
Specifically, the pope missed
an opportunity in 2025 to address filmmakers about how film can address theology,
as well as related though distinct things like metaphysics, the supernatural,
science, and morality. For example, theology in terms of two different
interpretations of the Kingdom of God is explicitly debated at the end of the film,
“Mary Magdalene” (2018). The question of the woman’s place among the disciples
is salient too, but had the pope emphasized the need to include a woman, the theological
questions regarding the Kingdom of God would have been sidelined in the pope’s
talk. Besides theology, how a character’s experience of distinctly religious
(or spiritual) transcendence can be acted and depicted in a film visually would
have been an excellent topic for the talk. Film going between two different
realms had been done in a secular, otherworldly way, as is done in the final scenes
of “The Others” (2001), and several films play with different realms as
different times. Film could do a lot more when it comes to visually and verbally
hinting at a distinctively religious transcendent (i.e., that which is inherently
beyond the limits of human cognition, perspective, and emotion).[4]
Ironically, religious leaders may be most useful in speaking to a secular audience
by highlighting how the domain is distinct, rather than in trying to be
influential in secular terms.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. I am drawing here on the work of Pseudo-Dionysus, a late 6th century Christian theologian who stressed the ineffability of God.
