The Holy See: Three of Pope Leo’s favorite films are divine. The fourth is difficult to forgive film

R“The Sound of Music” by Obert Wise, “It’s a Wonderful Life” by Frank Capra, “Ordinary People” by Robert Redford, and “Life is Beautiful” by Roberto Benigni.

These are some of his favorite movies… This is Pope Leo. This playlist of white bread films was released ahead of His Holiness’s “meeting with the world of cinema” on Saturday, part of the Vatican’s long-standing policy of engagement with creatives.

The Pope expressed, according to a Vatican statement, “his desire to deepen dialogue with the world of cinema, especially with actors and directors, to explore the possibilities that artistic creativity provides for the mission of the Church and the promotion of human values.” The Pope will speak with leading figures in the film industry, including Cate Blanchett, Spike Lee, George Miller, Gus Van Sant and Giuseppe Tornatore.

His choices of films seem, at first glance, very traditional compared to those of his predecessor Francis, which included Rossellini’s The Open City of Rome, Visconti’s The Leopard, and Fellini’s La Strada.

No doubt about it. Francis was a Letterboxd movie, bro. The lion is a bit uncool by comparison. But at least he didn’t choose anything biblical, like Mel Gibson’s unsettling “The Passion of the Christ” – a film so enjoyed by the late John Paul II that he is said to have muttered after the house lights came on: “It’s just the way it was…”.

But let’s take a look at this list of Leo’s favorite movies… which ends on a troubling note.

First, the sound outside the music. Leo loves it. fine. We all love it. Perhaps, as a Catholic leader, I enjoy the anachronism in this film: the Austrian nuns who were Anti-Nazi? amazing. Interesting. Then there’s Capra’s beloved classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” about James Stewart coming to see how he’s made a difference in the lives of people in his small town of Bedford Falls.

Capra was a Catholic and the main church in the city is the Catholic Church of Saint Peter and Paul. The heartbreaking Redford regulars are very secular but it’s all about family values.

But then there’s the saccharine “Life is Beautiful” from comedian and director Roberto Benigni. Benigni plays an Italian Jew who in 1944 is thrown into a Nazi death camp with his son, and using various evil tricks and tricks tries to hide what is happening from the boy, pretending that it is all just a game. There’s something disturbing, disturbing, and existentially dishonest about the film’s attempt to apply quiet sentimental comedy to the Holocaust.

Given the turbulent relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Nazi regime, I was really hoping the Pope would choose something else.

Sister Bridget, the terrifying matriarch played by Geraldine McEwan in Peter Mullan’s searing drama The Magdalene Sisters, is a big fan of the gentle Catholic comedy The Bells of St Mary’s, starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman. Perhaps His Holiness can watch this hour?