The Pope said that art is an antidote to uniformity that challenges one's views of the world.
Continuing his dialogue with culture, Pope Francis met with American artists. Among them was Martin Scorsese, the director of films such as “Goodfellas” and “Taxi Driver.” He was moved when the Pope greeted him.
Pope Francis reminded the artists of a phrase of the Guatemalan writer Miguel Angel Asturias, whom he also quoted during his trip to Cuba in 2015.
POPE FRANCIS
A Latin American writer used to say that we have two eyes: one of flesh and the other of glass. With the one of flesh we look at what we see, with the one of glass we look at what we dream. Poor us if we stop dreaming, poor us!
The Pope said that art is an antidote to uniformity that challenges one's views of the world. He referred to the Gospel as an artistic challenge with a 'revolutionary' charge and called upon the artists to join the Church in her prophetic work.
POPE FRANCIS
Today the Church needs your genius because it needs to protest, to call out and to shout.
The meeting was organized by the Italian Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica and Georgetown University—the oldest Catholic university in the U.S.
This was not Martin Scorsese's first time meeting Pope Francis. They also met in 2016 during the Vatican screening of 'Silence,' a film about the hardships suffered by Jesuit missionaries in Japan.
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