Pope invites Oprah, Matt Damon and Ari Emanuel to the Vatican 'to talk about influence of media on values of young people worldwide'
Emanuel, 54, the younger brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, will be joined at the audience by his colleague at William Morris Endeavor talent agency Patrick Whitesell, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The magazine asserted, relying on unnamed sources, that the meeting will be about ways to improve the image of the Catholic Church in Western media, but that claim has since been vehemently disputed.
In a statement to Daily Mail Online Thursday, a spokesperson for the Varkey Foundation - a non-profit dedicated to improving education for underprivileged children - said that the organization has been in discussions with the Vatican about a possible meeting examining the influence of media on the values of youths.
'Recent media speculation about the purpose and possible participants in such a meeting is totally inaccurate,' the statement read. 'The meeting under consideration is emphatically not a discussion about the reputation of the Catholic Church.'
This will not be the first time that the Argentine-born pontiff rubs shoulders with Hollywood's elite.
This past January, the Pope granted director and humanitarian Angelina Jolie a private audience at the Vatican following the screening of her latest film, Unbroken.
WME declined to comment on whether Emanuel, who heads the entertainment agency together with Whitesell, will attend the meeting with the Pope.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3186406/Pope-invites-Oprah-Matt-Damon-Ari-Emanuel-Vatican-help-improve-Catholic-Church-s-image-media.html