Pope Leo
Black glasses, hat, dark suit. More than a future pontiff, it seemed Jake Blues. Yet, behind that Blues Brothers disguise there was him: the young man Robert Francis Provostlong before it became Pope Leo XIV. In the Vatican documentary Leo from Chicago in fact, a photograph of the young man appears Provost in Jake and Elwood version. An image that tells the apparently normal story of a man who grew up in Chicago, the symbolic city of the film John Landisand who, a few decades later, was elected as Peter’s successor.
The meeting at the Rimini Meeting
On Saturday 22 August, however, that youthful passion found an unexpected sequel. At the Rimini Meeting, Pope Leo XIV he met Louis «Blue Lou» Marinisaxophonist and composer of the Blues Brothers Band, who had already appeared as an actor in the famous 1980 cult film. The two shook hands in front of the Vatican media stand, both visibly emotional, almost like two friends who meet again after a long time.
It was not a meeting of pure circumstance. The Pontiff cited a scene from the film and reminded Marini how he is still, decades later, “on a mission on behalf of God”. A joke that the musician was able to pick up on the fly: he showed a pair of dark glasses, the Ray-Ban style ones made immortal by John Belushi And Dan Aykroydand delivered them to the Pope. Leo XIV he chose to reciprocate with two rosaries.
Behind the scenes of the meeting between Pope Leo XIV and the saxophonist
Marini he hadn’t shown up in Rimini with the famous Ray-Bans by chance. Far from it. Having arrived at the Vatican Media studios with his glasses already in his hand, he announced to those present: “I am for the Pope.” He also confessed that he would have liked to have the words “Papa Cool” engraved on it, but the limited timeframe didn’t allow it. With or without dedication, the gift still hit the mark, there is no doubt about that.
The exchange between Leo XIV and the musician is worth more than a curiosity. On the one hand the black glasses, a pop symbol of a comedy that has spanned several generations. On the other, the rosary, an object of daily devotion for the Christian faith. Two worlds which, in Prevost’s biography, have always had the opportunity to coexist happily.
Perhaps this is precisely the most curious part of the story of Robert Francis Provost: the man from Chicago continues to be glimpsed behind the Pontiff’s white robe. The one who listened to the Blues Brothers, who as a boy could dress up as Jake and Elwood and who today, almost by a twist of fate, found himself receiving those very black glasses from one of the film’s protagonists. A Pope with the rosary in his hand and Ray-Ban glasses. A scene that, probably, not even John Landis he could have written better.
