It is difficult on television to see something unpublished and that a camera has never been able to record before. Today, Disney releases one of these rarities, Amen. Francisco responds, a special co-directed by Jordi Évole and Mà rius Sánchez in which the Pope has a meeting with ten young people to discuss topics as varied (and delicate for the Church) as abortion, sexual abuse, the role of woman or the loss of faith. “It was a unique opportunity to bring together two worlds that normally do not touch, to have one of the most influential people in the world dialogue with a group of young people whose lives sometimes collide head-on with the postulates of the Church”, their directors comment.
After the good harmony between the Pontiff and Jordi Évole after that Salvados in 2019, “it didn’t take much for the Pope to accept our proposal”, reveals Évole. “His phrase was: ‘Meeting people is part of my job,'” Sánchez adds. And without red lines or censorship. “One of the most surprising things is that the level of conversation with the Pope is very unusual. There is talk of topics that, although he may have addressed them on occasion, what he has never done is debate them”, highlights Évole.
The meeting took place on June 28 outside the Vatican, in a collaborative work space. Ten young people with different profiles and experiences were chosen. There are believers, atheists and a Muslim; a victim of sexual abuse, a girl who devotes herself to porn, an activist in favor of abortion, an anti-abortionist Catholic…
“You could see the Holy Father was very focused”. And the young people, how were they? “Very nervous”, continues Évole, who especially remembers Juan, whose case is surely one of the most shocking. “When he was between 10 and 11 years old, a nun sexually abused him while he was studying at an Opus Dei school in Bilbao,” says Sánchez.
After a while, he reported him. Justice convicted the teacher but his sentence was reduced to two years and he did not go to prison. And the Church’s investigation was closed without any consequences. “It is a transcendent moment because we have never seen the Pope comforting a victim of abuse”, points out Sánchez. The Pope also decides to reopen Juan’s case.
If we see an understanding Pope here, on issues such as the role of women in the Church or abortion he is more inflexible. “Nor can we expect a Pope to suddenly take a pro-abortion position,” says Évole. At other times, Francesc seems to discover new worlds, such as when a non-binary person tells him that he met his girlfriend on Tinder. “But he doesn’t care; in fact, he says he likes that young people have the Christopher Columbus complex of going to conquer things and encourages them to experimentâ€.
“Those who went there convinced continued there and those who had doubts also came out pretty much the same. Yes, there were cases of fascination with the figure of the Pope, of really seeing him as a moral leader”, concludes Évole.
