David Farnor | On 24, Apr 2025

“I’ve learnt a great deal from you. This has been very good for me.” Those are the words of Pope Francis in The Pope: Answers, a documentary that sees the Pope sit down with 10 young people and answer their questions. It’s remarkable that such a thing ever happened – but what’s even more quietly astonishing is that the Pope spends less time answering questions than he asking everyone else questions and listening.

The film, directed by Jordi Évole and Màrius Sanchez, is a short but profound watch. It films the conversation between the Pope and his audience – Victor, Juan, Khadim, Milagros, Maria, Celie, Dora, Medha, Alejandra and Lucia – that took place back in June 2022 in the Rome neighbourhood of Pigneto. Aged between 20 and 25 years old, the Pope’s interviewers aren’t afraid to go in hard, sparking debates and discussions around all kinds of topics that you wouldn’t expect the Pope to dare address.

The conversation moves from the migration crisis – the challenge of racism and hierarchies within societies and the importance of sincere integration – to feminism, abortion and sex. An in-depth discussion about pornography and masturbation is a frank and heartfelt rumination on connection with people vs objectification of others, on love and pleasure. A moving revelation about one participant’s personal experience of abuse will bring you to tears, before stirring you with its talk of justice and fairness.

Throughout, the Pope is that rare thing in modern society: accountable. He is transparent and acknowledges, rather than dismisses, these young people’s concerns, fears and pains, validating their experiences with courtesy and grace. He doesn’t go against the Catholic Church’s doctrines (that would be a whole separate documentary) and only quotes the Bible a couple of times when needed, but he does agree and call out the problems of corruption within the ranks – it’s not a preaching lecture but a genuine back-and-forth, never once being defensive and instead responding to each question openly.

That lack of ego is no surprise for a man whose principles, identity and legacy was one rooted in humility. He begins the film by admitting that he doesn’t have a mobile phone, but that he is passionately committed to communicating with everything – something borne out by him doing this interview to communicate with a younger generation.

There’s a slightly disappointment in the fact that doesn’t explicitly apologise for the Church’s wrongdoings, but he had done so previously and his conviction for doing the right thing is certainly tangible here – he boldly refers to people who use the Bible to condone persecution as “infiltrators”, just as he frankly “calls a spade a spade” on a number of occasions. He cautions about getting caught up in ideologies, while calling people to look above cultural debates and respect everyone. Throughout, this diverse group of young people are themselves unabashedly and unashamedly, and Pope Francis warmly welcomes that fact, thanking them for their stories, their courage and their sensitivity. Whether it’s speaking with a young woman whose faith, he warns, will be tested or respecting another person’s strength for walking away from an abusive church community to save themselves, there will be something in this wide-ranging conversation that will resonate with your own life in some small way. You only hope that whoever the next Pope is would still be willing to take part in such a documentary – what a brilliantly understated example of leadership this is.

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