LEONARDO DICAPRIO brushed up on his Italian to greet Pope Francis at the Vatican today, discussed their shared concern over the environment, and gave him a cheque.
“Your Holiness, thank you for granting me this private audience with you,” DiCaprio said in Italian as he arrived in the Apostolic Palace and kissed the pope’s ring.
Later, in English, DiCaprio offered Francis a book of works by the 15th-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, and showed him the reproduction of Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” that had hung over his crib as a child.
The triptych, which DiCaprio has referred to in the past, depicts Adam and Eve in the first panel, a teeming landscape in the centre panel, and finally a vision of hell.
As a child I didn’t quite understand what it all meant, but through my child’s eyes it represented a planet, the utopia we had been given, the overpopulation, excesses.
And in the third panel we see a blackened sky that represents so much to me of what’s going in in the environment.
DiCaprio said he thought the painting also represented Francis’ environmental concerns.
An assistant then handed Francis an envelope and explained it was a cheque for the pope to use for charity works “close to your heart.”
DiCaprio, who is a leading contender for an Oscar this year for his role in “The Revenant,” recently addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, announcing his foundation was donating another $15 million to environmental projects.
Francis gave DiCaprio a leather-bound copy of Laudato Si and his earlier document, The Joy of the Gospel.
DiCaprio was accompanied by his father, George DiCaprio, and a representative from the Leonardo Di Caprio foundation.
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