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Film Director Spike Lee and his wife Tonya Lewis Lee leave at the end of an audience of Pope Leo XIV with actors and directors from the cinema, at the Vatican, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

VATICAN CITY – Pope Leo XIV welcomed Spike Lee, Cate Blanchett, Greta Gerwig and dozens of other Hollywood luminaries to a special Vatican audience Saturday celebrating cinema and its ability to inspire and unite.

Leo encouraged the filmmakers and celebrities gathered in a frescoed Vatican audience hall to use their art to include marginal voices, calling film “a popular art in the noblest sense, intended for and accessible to all.”

“When cinema is authentic, it does not merely console, but challenges,” he told

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