The film was shot in June 2022, produced for the Disney+ platform by a Spanish journalist, Jordi Évole, who introduces himself as El Follonero [le f. from Mr. (sic)]. According to an AFP dispatch of April 5, 2023, taken up by the French-speaking Lebanese newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour, the outfit of these young people is eloquent: necklines, shorts, tattoos, piercings, backwards cap, and colorful hair.
Broadcast on Holy Wednesday, April 5, this 80-minute conversation with Francis shows an octogenarian pope pushed to his limits by young people aged 20 to 25: Catholics, atheists, a Muslim… none using terms of respect and address the pope with familiar terms and criticize the attitude of the Catholic Church.
From feminism to migration, including mental health and LGBT+ rights, a wide range of social issues, often heavy, are tackled without any restraint. “What do you think of church members or priests who promote hate and use the Bible to support hate speech?” asks Celia, who defines herself as a “non-binary” person, that is to say, one feels neither male nor female.
“These people are infiltrators who use the Church for their personal passions, for their personal narrowness,” answers the pope who maintains his usual opening speech towards sexual orientation and gender identity. “Every person is a child of God. The Church cannot close the door to anyone,” he insists.
For better or worse, he also tries to explain the position of the Church on abortion or the non-access of women to the priesthood, without convincing his listeners.
For Ana Sanchez de la Nieta, on Aceprensa of April 5, “the Pope listens a lot to these young people and, rather than answering their doubts, which follow one another in a rapid and aggressive way, he insists on the idea of welcoming: each has his place in the Church and in the heart of Jesus Christ.” At one point François is given a green scarf.
The Spanish journalist explains that this is a “particularly provocative symbol of the defense… of abortion as a human and universal right. And everyone who reads the newspapers knows this, as does the pope, who is Argentinian and knows the very tough abortion debate that is going on in his country.”
“But the one who gives him this green scarf is a young girl in tears, who teaches catechism in her parish and who sees, she says, how the priests reject, insult, and mistreat women who have abortions…, and the pope takes the scarf, in a gesture that is worth gold for the supporters of abortion and which is a blow to those who seek solutions other than abortion.”
“It is true that immediately afterwards the pope says that it is one thing to welcome and another to justify, but on television an image is worth more than an encyclical.”
On the Alfa y Omega site of April 5, the journalist who carried out the interview confided some secrets about Francis’s reaction after watching the film: “When the pope finished watching the documentary, he waved his hand, as if to take off his hat. He said this is how the Church should communicate with its faithful, whether inside or outside. For him, it is one more pastoral act, but with a global reach.”
And to clarify a very revealing point: “We had not agreed to anything and Francis did not set any conditions. I was ready, because of the relationship we had and the trust he had placed in us, to take something down if he asked us to. It may be frowned upon for a journalist to say this, but I was considering editing if he asked us.”
“Obviously nothing major, but there are times when he looks uncomfortable. However, he did not tell us to remove such a look or such a gesture. He didn’t ask anything. This is unprecedented in the world of communication today.”
The Argentinian blog The Wanderer of April 12, written by a certain Ludovicus, severely criticizes Francis’s participation in this filmed interview: “Bergoglio is old. This, which should not be a demerit, acquires the characteristics of a pathetic complex when he himself says that he is old-fashioned and anachronistic, that he does not have a cell phone, that he does not know what Tinder is, that his secretaries manage his Twitter account for him.”
“While he desperately tries outdo himself by saying that Tinder seems normal to him, and he intends to talk to young people while ignoring their culture and carefully avoiding any categorical moral judgments about the aberrations they describe and praise.”
For Ludovicus, it is the complex of the old man who seeks to seduce young people, by flattering them: “It is the syndrome of the cool old man, that is, the aging progressive who is desperately looking for a precious validity that, alas, slips away faster than life.”
“He tries to win over young people with flattery and demagoguery, showing himself to be “advanced,” permissive and adapted to the present time – which, once again, is not his. This is the usual way in which mediocre politicians and sophist teachers since before Plato crown their careers, eager for the attention bought by permissiveness. It does not usually turn out well.”
And he adds: “There is a feeling of emptiness and restlessness. In the entire talk, which lasted almost an hour and a half, the Vicar of Christ hardly invoked the name of Christ. In fact, he did not speak of Him at all. He engaged in a form of cheap apologetics.”
“Christianity has been reduced to irrelevance, replaced by a vague fraternity of modern monsters full of irreducible contradictions, confirmed in their vices and habits by silence or confusion. The Church is universal, because everyone can enter, good people, bad people, atheists, transsexuals, gender fluid, Muslims, atheists, etc.”
On the site of the Vaticanist Marco Tosatti, Stilum Curiæ of April 12, there is an analysis by José Arturo Quarracino, a compatriot of the pope, who returns to the answer that the latter gave to Celia, the “non-binary” who deplored hate speech against homosexuals, coming from those who point to the Gospel in order to be able to say: “it is not I who exclude you, it is the Bible that says so.”
To this, Francis replies: “These people are infiltrators, who take advantage of the teaching of the Church for their personal passions, for their personal narrow-mindedness, it is one of the corruptions of the Church, these are closed ideologies.”
“Basically, all these people have an internal drama, a drama of great interior incoherence, they live to condemn others because they don’t know how to ask forgiveness for their own faults. In general, the one who condemns is incoherent, he has a problem inside, so he frees himself by condemning others, when he should lower his head and look at his own faults.”
Then quoting St. Paul, José Arturo Quarracino wonders if the Apostle to the Gentiles is, in Francis’ eyes, an “infiltrator.” He says in effect that “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God,” [1 Cor. 6:9-10].
Perplexed, the Argentinian scholar wonders and wants Francis to explain in writing “what was the interior drama that afflicted St. Paul, what was this drama of great interior incoherence that led him to condemn others, because ‘he did not know how to ask forgiveness for his own faults’”?
And to conclude with a question that contains his answer: “Ultimately, who is right: St. Paul or Bergoglio?”
During Holy Week, a documentary film was broadcast under the title: “Amen, Francis responds”… And, in fact, this interview of the Pope with some carefully selected young people, gave the impression that Francis had only one thing to tell them: Amen.