“Pope Francis is already a celebrity, one of the most popular and talked-about figures in the world. So it’s fitting that he could officially become a movie star, playing himself in an upcoming film titled “Beyond the Sun.”
AMBI Pictures, a Luxembourg-based international production company, announced Monday that the pontiff has agreed to play a small role in an upcoming family adventure movie, based on his own suggestion to filmmakers to find imaginative ways to tell the Jesus story to children.On background, however, a Vatican official on Monday struck a cautious note, saying details of the pope’s involvement are not yet worked out.Assuming Francis does appear in the film, it wouldn’t be a papal first; he’ll following in the footsteps of his predecessor Pope Pius XII, who made his own cinematic cameo almost 60 years ago.”[...]
“When and if the papal movie eventually hits theaters, Francis will become the second modern pope to play himself on screen.
In 1958, Pope Pius XII agreed to play a small role in a movie called “Embezzled Heaven,” which tells the story of Teta Linek, a cook for the noble Austrian family of Argan, who thinks primarily of ways to get to heaven.If the past is prologue, the pope’s participation may not mean a critical free pass on the movie. A 1959 New York Times review, after “Embezzled Heaven” had been dubbed into English, praised it as “inspiring” and “thought-provoking,” but also called it excessively “verbose” and “cumbersome.””
source: Crux News, Pope Francis set to make big-screen debut in family adventure film
Pius XII in ‘Embezzled Heaven’
How degrading. The Pope had already gone Hollywood back in the late 1950s. My great grandmother grew up in Rome in the same neighborhood as Pius XII. They were acquaintances. According to stories my mother told, my grandmother was already a bit of a modernist when it came to the Church, being that she and our family were associated with the opera house in Rome. It's really no surprise that Pope Pacelli was already infected by the idea that relevancy required he get before the camera.
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