Pope Leo on the Cinema: A Distinctively Religious Role?

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 instead discussing the social functions of film not only limits the potential of film, but also ironically marginalizes a significant potential of film ironically in the pope’s own field.

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, Chicago, and “Life is Beautiful” (1997) are known for their psychological aspects: a family dealing with one son’s suicide and another family dealing with the Nazis in Europe. In fact, neither film includes anything religious or spiritual. Admittedly, since the works of Sigmund Freud were published, it has been tempting in Western culture to reduce religion to psychology, or to conflate the two distinct domains if they were the same. The increasing secularizing of North America and Europe in the twentieth century no doubt played a role in reconfiguring religion as it were isomorphic with another domain. Had the faculty and librarians at Harvard, including Larry Summers and Ben Friedman (both economists), not been so rude and even brazenly passive aggressive toward me while I was conducting research there on the category mistake by pulling the weeds out of the religious garden to find what lies underneath as the native fauna distinct to religion, I might have written a treatise on religion sui generis. At a certain age, however, a person can simply ask oneself, do I really want to contribute to the American academic academy? But I digress.

In his talk, the pope went so far as to make a political or cultural statement regarding the ability of film to not merely console, but also challenge people by including marginal voices. In its “noblest sense,” he said, the “popular art” of motion pictures is “intended for and accessible to all.”[3] Rather than urging theater-owners to charge poor people less, 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,” and the self-interested strategies of business and political elites to artificially narrow what is debated to keep truly challenging perspectives from being aired.

Nevertheless, a religious leader overreaches in putting such an emphasis on secular, ideological concerns, including “affirming the social and cultural value” of people watching movies together in a movie theater without mentioning that high ticket prices keep out the poor and so they should instead be watching movies alone, assuming they have laptops and wifi. That the advent of computer technology has made an expensive ticket at a movie theater optional suggests that the pope’s nostalgia in addressing filmmakers in 2025 was partial, as is the case with any ideology. That he inadvertently put unneeded pressure on poor and even lower middle-class people to pay steep ticket-prices so they can be included in “uniting” with other people merely in being in a dark room together reacting similarly to scenes in a movie, supports my point that he should have stayed with his knitting, which is a saying in the book, In Search of Excellence by Peters and Waterman, whose main point is that companies should stick to what they are good at, rather than wander off in a Zhuangzian fashion into other lines of business to get more in profits as a Mohist would.  

The pope’s focus on matters that were not directly in his forte not only rendered him subject to correction, but also came with an opportunity cost in terms of the foregone benefit that a talk on the potential of film in theology or spirituality would have had instead. 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 among his favorites that are centered on religion, and even more surprisingly absent, on the Gospels in particular, 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), "Mary" (2024), and “Ben-Hur” (1959). “Jesus of Nazareth” (1977), albeit a television mini-series though with an astounding cast, was undoubtedly formative for the pope, as he was a college student when the show first aired. I remember well watching that limited series as a boy. As a college student then, the pope would not have missed such a series.  I remember what the very religious college students in the years soon after the pope had graduated; they were very focused on their religious faith. One Baptist student curiously in ROTC used to come (uninvited) sometimes into my dorm room while I was studying at night to pray for me because my roommate was an evangelical Christian. This was nothing compared to the Calvinist cult I would encounter at Yale’s divinity school and then the “woke” cult at Harvard’s divinity school. But I digress (again).

I contend that Pope Leo 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 salient in the film, “Mary Magdalene” (2018), especially when Mary and Peter debate two very different yet valid interpretations of what the Kingdom of God is. The question of the woman’s place among the disciples is an element of the film, but as Mary and Jesus are not romantically or sexually but only spiritually close, the feminist angle between Mary and the rest of the disciples is kept secondary. For the pope to have highlighted that angle, his take on contemporary culture could have eclipsed distinctly theological questions regarding the Kingdom of God. Even the Catholic Church’s stance against women becoming priests is not theological, and the closeness of Mary to Jesus in the film, plus The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, can inform that Church’s stance on that issue. But I digress (again).

Besides theology in and through film, 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 pope’s talk. That films have effectively portrayed two different realms, even simultaneously as in the film, “The Others" (2001), in a secular, otherworldly context, means that the medium of film could do a lot more when it comes to visually and verbally hinting at a distinctively religious or spiritual transcendent, which can be grasped (to a point) as something that 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 of religion is distinct, rather than in trying to be influential in secular, ideological terms. Pope Leo should have stuck to his knitting, for the potential of the art and medium of film in depicting spiritual and institutionally-religious matters is great, and on this point I most certainly do not digress.

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1. Nicole Winfield, “Pope Leo XIV Celebrates Cinema with Hollywood Stars and Urges Inclusion of Marginal Voices,” APNews.com, November 15, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. I am drawing here on the work of Pseudo-Dionysus, a late 6^th century Christian theologian who stressed the ineffability of God.

The Crow

Considering the amount of screentime devoted to raw violence, it may come as a surprise that The Crow (1994) is actually about love. Not that the film is about an abusive romantic relationship, for the respect that is necessary for love is instantly expunged as soon as violence enters into the equation. The infliction of violence is a manifestation of self-love in the sordid sense of self-idolatry, rather than of love that is directed to other people. So, it may be difficult to fathom how violence can serve love, and even be a manifestation of love, as The Crow illustrates.

The full essay is at "The Crow."

Spirituality in the Workplace: Hindu and Christian Strategies

Mohan Vilas, a Hindu monk at Govardha Ecovillage, spoke at Harvard’s Bhakti Yoga Conference in 2025. He had gone from the world of financial derivatives to worshipping Krishna. Once he had fulfilled his “lower needs,” he looked for more. After obtaining a M.B.A. and while working in finance, he was hungry for knowledge beyond the world of business. So he studied ancient Vedic culture. His talk at the conference was on being an idealist surrounded by strategists. He addressed the question of whether the world allows individuals to practice virtue. Even when a person is not in a dysfunctional workplace or in a hostile society, the human mind struggles, Vilas said, to apply ethical virtues. Plato’s dictum that to know the good is enough do the good, and thus to be good, may be wildly optimistic, considering the instinctual force of urges in our nature to act immorally, even though other people are harmed as a result. It is even more difficult to get into a habit of doing good while “swimming upstream” in an ethically compromised workplace or an aggressive societal culture. An ethical Russian or Israeli soldier in the mid-2020s, for example, would have a lot of trouble refusing to bomb hospitals in Ukraine and Gaza, respectively, and, moreover, invading another country and withholding food so to starve an occupied group. Such a soldier would be intolerable to both Putin and Netanyahu, respectively. Vilas’s question is the following: What happens when a person who is good is put into a selfish society? Must an ethical person finally inevitably exit a culture that rewards narrow selfishness, passive-aggression and deception?

Dostoevsky wrote when Russia was in crisis. In The Idiot, Prince Myshkin is an idealist who refuses to corrupt himself. It comes with a price: isolation.  If a society rejects moral purity, then what is valued? Myshkin is surrounded by schemers, but he is good nonetheless. His mere existence exposes the hypocrisy of those who are around him. He is identified as a problem by the corrupt. He is upsetting the balance in the social setting. He is viewed an active disturbance to be destroyed. If this sounds familiar, Jesus in the Gospel narratives is in the same dynamic. The very presence of an idealist is intolerable to sordid people who are used to manipulating other people. Being good is not beneficial in a dysfunctional societal (or organizational) culture in which cunningness is valued. Those who play fairly have a disadvantage relative to the corrupt manipulators because the latter have made the rules.

So, an idealist may be tempted to be a savvy Machiavellian strategist. Machiavelli wrote The Prince for rulers in a harsh international context. Not many people realize that his History of Florence includes the element of morality. Similarly, Adam Smith wrote not only The Wealth of Nations, but also The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the latter in which the professor of moral philosophy based his ethical theory founded on impartial sentiments in making moral judgments. However, Smith does not maintain that participants in a marketplace should be expected to act according to how others impartially feel about business conduct. Instead, the amoral and impersonal mechanism of “the invisible hand” gives aggregated self-interests of participants the unintended societal benefit of people working and obtaining goods and services. Smith accepts that market participants are self-seeking economic agents engaged in buying and selling rather than in being concerned for the economic welfare of others. That the invisible hand efficiently allocates goods and services in a competitive marketplace, which is a benefit of self-interests interacting, does not institute ethical business conduct by participants. In spite of the empirical studies claiming that acting ethically in business pays off financially, imperfect information can enable the unscrupulous to thrive.

Historically, Quakers in Europe and North America were known to be honest in business, and so they enjoyed trustworthy reputations.  This is not something that Smith counted on in writing about market competition in Wealth of Nations.

Even if Christianity had to some extend fostered ethical conduct, I submit that the advent of secularity in the West meant that the voluntary adoption of religious ethics in business could be less and less relied on. In India, I doubt that many Hindu merchants mimic the lack of concern for consequences in doing one’s caste’s duties that Krishna advocates to Arjuna concerning fighting in a military battle in the Bhagavad-Gita. A merchant could well protest that ignoring consequences in managing a business is a recipe for how to go out of business, in which case no one could get the goods or services provided by the business. It is more realistic to urge that the compassion enjoined by Krishna be practiced in the workplace, even if the workplace culture is toxic, and towards customers. Similarly, compassion to one’s detractors, as preached by Jesus in the Gospels, could gradually detoxify a dysfunctional organizational culture. Much stronger medicine, however, is expounded by Samuel Hopkins, who was a protégé of the Christian theologian of New England, Jonathan Edwards, in a book on holiness. Whereas Edwards, in his sermon, “The Portion of the Righteous,” maintains that the elect are to enter the kingdom of God only after the Last Judgment (i.e., Christ’s Second Coming), Hopkins interprets the kingdom of God as being accessible to a person before physical death in so far as one is kind and compassionately helpful to people who dislike one and whom one dislikes.  This version goes beyond the benevolentia universalis of generalized “neighbor-love,” and can be much more powerful spiritually in turning around a passive-aggressive organizational culture. Inconvenient compassion issuing out in acts of kindness takes much more effort, as the internal resistance is more, but, if done, the spiritual and psychological dynamic between two or more people can be utterly transformed.

Realistically, however, good-hearted idealists can be all-too-easily “eaten up” by sharks that thrive in hostile, back-stabbing organizational cultures. Sometimes it is best to vote with one’s feet kick off the dirt from one’s sandals, and find another workplace in which to work. Life is too short to stay where one is hated and otherwise where too many people are hateful. In this regard, I found Yale and New Haven, Connecticut to be beyond repair in 2025. That the university’s police chief, who was Christian minister and alumnus of Yale’s divinity school, had accepted the invitation of the FBI to show Yale’s private police unit how to use counter-terrorism tactics on students, post-doctoral researchers, faculty and presumably even alumni back auditing a course, and that security guards were regularly spying on students on campus was enough for me to pull the plug. I even asked if it was possible to refuse a degree already granted. This was greeted with a passive-aggressive refusal to reply to my email. So, I voted with my feet and returned to Harvard. Better to vote on principle than stay and be inflicted with passive-aggression sans organizational accountability.

Regarding employees of organizations, whether private, governmental, or non-profit, walking away, if done by more people in dysfunctional organizations, could have an “Adam Smith” kind of impact whereby organizations having toxic workplaces go under while healthy organizations prosper. Voting with one’s feet in employment is utilized too seldomly because of the financial uncertainty involved, especially in cases in which an employee quits one job before having secured another. Even if doing one’s duty by performing functions of one’s caste, including that of merchants, is valued, this does not mean that a Hindu is duty-bound to remain working in a dysfunctional company. A person need not choose between Shankara’s method of total renunciation and staying in a toxic organization. A person can both remain employed and exercise enough initiative to get out of a bad working situation and into a healthy organization.

The Exorcist Extrapolated: Ministering to the Devil as "Love Thy Enemies."

One of the most iconic films of the horror-film genre, The Exorcist (1973) focuses on the duality of good and evil that the film’s director, William Friedkin, maintained is in a constant struggle in all of us. The dialogue between the two priests performing the exorcism on the one side and the Devil possessing Regan on the other not only reveal the duality, but also the essence of evil itself. Once this essence is grasped, interesting questions can be asked that are distinctly theological, as distinct from modernity’s trope of evil portrayed in terms of, and even reduced to, supernatural movements of physical objects. The decadent materialist version of the theological domain stems from modernity’s bias in favor of materialism and empiricism. In other words, highlighting supernatural physics as being foremost in representing the religious realm is how secularity sidelines religion, rather than how religion itself is. The bias of modern society is very clear in the film as the “professionals” go through alternative explanations first from the field of medicine, privileging the somatic (physical) and then the psychological domains of medicine. In other words, the narrative establishes (or reflects) a hierarchy of three qualitatively different levels of descending validity: the somatic is primary, and only then the psychological, and, if the first two do not furnish an explanation, then, and only then, are we to turn to the theological as metaphysically (i.e., supernaturally) real primarily shown by physical objects defying the laws of physics. Science, rather than religion, is thus still in the driver’s seat. The bias in favor of materialism is in the assumption that only after feasible hypotheses from modern medicine are nullified can theological explanations be considered (as credible). In this way, the film reflects the hegemony of materialism that has taken hold since the Enlightenment, and the relegation of the theological as “magical” supernaturalism, as in a bed levitating of objects flying around Regan’s bedroom. The essence of evil is instead interior. If religion is a matter of the heart, then how could evil be otherwise?

The full essay is at "The Exorcist."

Religious Themes Secularized Through Film

One approach to infusing religion in a film is to utilize a secular lens to keep overt religious content hidden such that only its messages that can be stated in a secular way come through. The basic values of a religion can be transmitted without specific religious belief-claims possibly turning off some viewers. Given the mass audience that a typical film can reach, the medium is a good means for presenting people with values that come out of religion but have their own intrinsic worth apart from the related religious belief-claims. Film can play a role, therefore, in enabling the values of a religion to survive the religion’s downfall. From watching the film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), a viewer would not know that Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister. His wife says at one point in the film that Fred reads scripture and prays daily, but that is the only clue in the film that his religious faith is the source of his motivation for and messages on his show, “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.”

The full essay is at "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood."

Church Scandals in a Secularizing World

A religious institution can least afford scandal involving highly unethical and illegal activity when the world is secularizing; the headwind alone requires a lot of energy just to stay in place, let alone move forward. The trail of child-rape scandals and cover-ups had by 2018 made a dent in the number of Roman Catholics in Latin America, yet other factors also accounted for the declines in church membership, and thus obfuscated estimates of the fallout in particular.  I contend that the gravity of the sexual abuse and related cover-ups by clergy warrants more than just being reckoned as one of several factors, even though the actual exodus was muted relative to the severity of the crimes.

“The number of Chileans who described themselves as Catholic dropped from 74 percent in 1995 to 45 percent [in2017], according to a poll by Latinobarómetro. The decline of Catholicism in Argentina, from 87 percent in 1995 to 65 percent [in2017] has also been significant.”[1] These are significant drops, and they exist in other countries in the region too. What factors lie behind this downward trend?  The New York Times pointed at the time to increasing secularity in “prosperous nations, including Chile and Uruguay. . . . In countries in the region troubled by violence, stark inequality and entrenched poverty like Brazil, evangelical denominations have cut deeply into the historical base of the Catholic Church.”[2] Fallout from sexual-abuse scandals by priests and covering bishops was also doubtless in the mix. Such abuse by religious men in a religious organization is unlike these other factors, for neither secularity nor economic inequality is so closely associated with, and thus pertaining to, the Roman Catholic Church. The downward effect of the personal failures and indeed hypocrisy of religious functionaries, especially in a denomination in which liturgy is so important in the process of sanctification, should arguably have been more pronounced that it actually was.

To be sure, during his visit early in 2018, Pope Francis “angered Chilean Catholics by defending a bishop who critics [said] protected a pedophile priest.”[3] Victims of Fernando Karadima, “Chile’s most notorious priest,” accused Bishop Juan Madrid of complicity in the crimes. The pope stated that “there is not one single piece of evidence. It is all slander. Is that clear?”[4] Ouch! Juan Cruz, one of the victims, had written, “As  if I could have taken a selfie or picture  while Karadima abused me orothers and Juan Barros stood there watching it all [before being elevated as a bishop by Pope Francis}.” Dismissing such an account was a good way for the pope to throw gas on a fire. “The pope’s comments set off a storm in Chile, raising questions about his commitment to repairing the damage from sexual abuse scandals and improving the decline in the church’s image and adherents” in Chile.[5] From the  standpoint of Jesus’s message, hypocrisy by the vicor of Christ is not a good thing. It is telling that a spokesperson of the Chilean government was closer to Jesus’s  message in stating, “Respecting,  believing  and supporting victims of sexual abuse is  an ethical imperative. No  institutional defense can override this basic principle for a fair society, one that is empathetic with those who most need it.”[6]  Empathy with the most vulnerable is one of the pillars of Jesus’s depicted life and teachings, whereas denial in defense of  the powerful sounds more Roman than Christian.

So I ask: why, even at the time of the pope’s visit to Chile and Peru, hadn’t more Catholics walked away from the Church? Why not a major exodus worldwide after the press reports of the reason for the pope’s chilly reception in Chile?  Imperfect information is doubtless part of the explanation. The short lifespan of moral outrage even at hypocrisy combined with the sheer force of routine in the human psyche is another. Even so, I submit that the importance of taking part in the Church’s sacraments—believed by the faithful to be important to salvation—kept even disgusted Catholics in the pews.  

Most important to a Catholic’s process of sanctification—the gradual transformation into being Christlike and thus fit for full reconciliation with God—is taking Communion at the Mass, which is presided over by clergy. They are a necessary part of a layperson’s return to God, according to Catholic belief. Historically, the Church decided the Donatist controversy by declaring that the moral lapses of a priest does not invalidate his concentration of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Moral and presumably even criminal faults may give rise to hypocrisy, but saying the liturgy is nonetheless sufficient in the consecration. Think of the liturgy of the Eucharist as a recipe of sorts; if said correctly, the consecration is, hocus pocus, accomplished. Whether the presiding priest was rude to someone before Mass is of no consequence. In a secularizing world, such a rationale is difficult to accept, yet Catholics socialized into the importance of attending Mass for their very salvation have a very different framework of belief. Even though that belief may be sorely tested when clergy misconduct arises, the way to salvation is held to be more important to the individual believer. In this perspective, the pursuit of salvation may appear selfish relative to taking a stand against a rapist priest or corrupt bishop by no longer going to Mass in empathy with the victims. By which of these two alternative courses does a believer become more Christlike—literally taking in the deity via Communion, or following Jesus’s example and teachings on how to live so as to enter the kingdom of God? A tough theological problem to be sure!

The sex scandals have been just one of several factors that together have doubtlessly been perceived by the Vatican as just another headwind that the long-lived institution will doubtless survive as it has survived other set-backs and challenges. Relativizing a current scandal by assuming a two-thousand-year perspective wrongly presumes an infallible coat of armour built up by centuries of existence. That the Catholic Church—any religious institution in fact—has responded so imperfectly (or not at all) is a testament to the human nature involved. Yet this is no excuse. The instinct for greater accountability within the Church is of course valid, for the ongoing need of a clergy so consecration can continue to be done does not justify retaining child-rapists and corrupt bishops who cover up the heinous crimes. For example, the Vatican could remove the rotted clerics and seek replacements. Lest it be objected that bending on the issue of clerical marriage would be inconvenient, the close tie between the Church and the crimes and cover-ups suggests that an inconvenient course-change is called for—that suffering costs due to external actors rather than one’s own volition is insufficient as payment by the institution. Such internal accountability is difficult, given the conflict of interest in an organization being tasked with voluntarily taking a hit (rather than merely taking a hit due to the actions of external actors, such as laity giving less financially). The laity and even the societies within which the Roman Catholic Church exists need not accept such institutional self-serving inertia.  Taking the road less convenient is something clerics ostensibly for agape (i.e., self-emptying) love should not have to be pressured into taking. Perhaps more Christians are needed in the Vatican, and fewer comfortable hypocrites in sheep’s clothing.

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1. Daniel Politi, “As Pope Heads to Chile and Peru, Argentines Feel Snubbed Again,” The New York Times, January 14, 2018.

2. Ibid.

3. Marcelo Rochabrún and Pascale Bonnefoy, “Pope Leaves a Furor in Chile, and Later Defends the Indigenous in Peru,” The New York Times, January 20, 2018.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

On how Church leaders might lead, see Spiritual Leadership and Christianized Ethical Leadership. On the secularization of the Church historically in terms of how wealth has been viewed in relation to greed, see God’s Gold.

Religion in Ethical Leadership in the Secular Context of Business

In Peter Berger's terms, the sacred and the profane are like oil and water. In Augustine's terms, the heavenly and earthly kingdoms are two distinct realms, a Christian being only a pilgrim passing through the latter, hence not to be "of it" while in it. I contend that such "white and black" dichotomies are artificial, and thus ill-fitting as paradigms in which to situate religion and ethical business leadership. Perhaps a devoutly religious CEO can unabashedly apply ethical elements of his or her religion without severing them from their theological underpinnings, and therefore without the need for subterfuge. I suspect that the legions of the CEO's subordinates would feel more, rather than less, respected. 

I bristle at the notion that Servant Leadership is distinctly or uniquely Christian. Gandhi, for example, intentionally borrowed from Jesus's teachings as well as Jain ethics to forge active non-violent protest. A leader of a business can genuinely be a servant, internally as well as in his or her conduct, without connecting the ethics to the distinctly Christian theological concept of agape--self-emptying love even unto the Cross. By the way, John D. Rockefeller viewed himself as a Christ figure in saving refiners from the destructive competition that had so ravaged the industry in the 1860s and early 1870s. He also likened himself to Noah--his Standard Oil being like an ark. Yet neither Noah nor Jesus killed the people (or animals) unwilling to be saved. "Save me from the followers of the Redeemer!" Nietzsche exclaims.

Interestingly, employees of a business leader who feels deeply the call of his or her faith on Monday rather than merely on Sunday may actually urge the CEO to apply his faith at full-throttle, rather than selectively as Rockefeller did. As distinctively Christian (meaning shaped by distinct theological concepts), though still respecting the otherness of the others rather than trying to convert them, Christian ethics at the helm need not be a threat, whether implicitly or in practice. A well-grounded, distinctive ethics can actually protect rather than threaten secular followers. In other words, I don't think Greenleaf's wan notion of servant leadership goes far enough because the secular exterior is in want of its native theological content. Ironically, the restoration of a vertical alignment would render the ethics stronger, and thus more rather than less in the interest of followers and even exterior stakeholder groups. 

Perhaps the optimal recipe consists of integration not only of word and deed and of interior and exterior, but also of ethics and the undergirding theology (which gives the ethical edifice a more refined shape). Pitfalls do indeed exist; but with respect for both the religious and secular integrities of followers, tension can be obviated. "Be whom you are," similar to the Buddhist preachment of being in the moment, is inherently respect-gathering, I submit, as long as the personal space of others is respected unconditionally too. 

caritas naturalis (seu agape), seu benevolentia universalis