Did the Vatican fund two huge Hollywood movies?
Throughout the history of Hollywood, many films have been funded in strange ways.
When Monty Python’s Life of Brian had its funding pulled by the studio, whose executives found its subject matter offensive, Monty Python member Eric Idle got in touch with his friend, ex-Beatle George Harrison, and asked him for financial help. A fan of the Pythons, Harrison accepted his request and ended up contributing around £2million to the production, which became one of the most acclaimed comedy films of all time.
Two years later, Inchon, an infamous war movie and historic box office bomb, was partly funded by the Unification Church, a controversial religious movement in South Korea. Meanwhile, the horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was partly funded by mob money. And recently, in a particularly bizarre case, it turns out that the Vatican partly funded two major Hollywood releases.
Every year, Catholics send money to the Pope to be used for charitable purposes; this is known as Peter’s Pence. A 2019 investigation by Corriere Della Sera revealed that the majority of the money isn’t actually used for its intended purpose and is instead used for other investments, such as administrative loopholes and various other financial schemes.
One such investment was in the Centurion Global Fund, based in Malta. The fund was said to be worth around $83m, with roughly two-thirds of that coming from the Vatican. This fund would later partly finance two films. One was the Hollywood blockbuster Men in Black: International, the fourth instalment of the Men in Black series, and the other was the Elton John biopic Rocketman.
The latter is particularly ironic. As many, including Sir Elton John himself, have pointed out, despite the Catholic Church’s doctrine being mostly opposed to homosexuality and even though the Catholic Church still forbids gay marriage, the Vatican partly funded this true-life story of a guy musician coming to terms with who he really is. Rocketman also ended up being the first major studio film to depict a gay male sex scene on-screen.
The Vatican has never confirmed or denied its investment in the films. Nonetheless, Pope Francis did order a shake-up of the Vatican’s financial affairs.
So, have any other films been unintentionally co-funded by the Vatican? It’s certainly possible, but if so, none of the others have been discovered. Not yet, anyhow.
