BREAKING NEWS

Martin Scorsese meets pope as film on Jesuits screens in Rome

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis on Wednesday met Martin Scorsese after a special screening in Rome of the Oscar-winning director's new film "Silence," about Jesuit missionaries in 17th century Japan, the Vatican said.
For Scorsese, who spent a year in a "minor seminary," a high school for boys considering the priesthood, the meeting came almost thirty years after many conservative Church leaders condemned his 1988 film "The Last Temptation of Christ."
The encounter held significance too for the 79-year-old pope, a member of the Jesuit order who as a young priest in Argentina had wanted to go to Japan as a missionary but could not for health reasons.
Scorsese, 74, attended a special screening of "Silence" on Tuesday night for more than 300 Jesuit priests. A second screening was planned for a smaller audience in the Vatican on Wednesday afternoon, though it was not clear if the pope would attend.