{"id":85484,"date":"2026-08-16T06:11:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T10:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/?p=85484"},"modified":"2026-08-16T06:12:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T10:12:53","slug":"actor-blown-away-by-meeting-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/actor-blown-away-by-meeting-pope\/","title":{"rendered":"Actor Blown Away By Meeting Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>From USA Today:<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">For\u00a0<a class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/entertainment\/movies\/2026\/08\/14\/matthew-mcconaughey-interview-rivals-amziah-king\/91216519007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\">Matthew McConaughey<\/a>, meeting the Pope was a bit like going to the Oscars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">While in Italy earlier this month, the \u201c<a class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5NeIIlsNsYM\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\">Rivals of Amziah King<\/a>\u201d actor greeted Pope Leo XIV\u00a0<a class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/entertainment\/celebrities\/2026\/08\/06\/matthew-mcconaughey-pope-leo-meeting-video\/91198090007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\">during the pontiff\u2019s weekly general audience<\/a> with the public at St. Peter\u2019s Basilica in Vatican City. McConaughey, 56, had a few things in mind that he wanted to tell the Holy Father, although he didn\u2019t prep a whole spiel. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of like preparing a speech for winning an award that you don\u2019t know you\u2019re going to win yet,\u201d McConaughey tells USA TODAY. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a\u00a0<em>coup de gra\u0302ce<\/em>: Don\u2019t do it because it\u2019s not going to go as you expected. \u2026 So I had some ideas. I wanted to talk to him about religion in today\u2019s world and where it sits with him as our moral compass.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From USA Today: For\u00a0Matthew McConaughey, meeting the Pope was a bit like going to the Oscars. While in Italy earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-85484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-news","7":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85484"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85486,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85484\/revisions\/85486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}