Mark Ruffalo to star in thriller about Polish Pope John Paul II’s road to sainthood

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Four-time Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo has been announced as the lead actor in Santo Subito!, an upcoming film, described as a thriller, that traces the path to sainthood of Polish Pope John Paul II.

The film, an international co-production involving a Polish studio, is set to begin shooting on March 9 in Poland and Italy, reports entertainment magazine Variety.

The film’s title – Italian for “sainthood now!” – echoes the chants of pilgrims urging the pope’s canonisation following his death in April 2005. John Paul II was recognised as a saint in 2014.

Ruffalo plays Father Joseph Murolo, an American priest asked to play the role of “devil’s advocate” in assessing the late John Paul II’s life and path to sainthood.

“As he interviews a range of witnesses — from devoted colleagues to secret confidantes — Murolo is drawn ever deeper into a moral labyrinth,” reads the film’s synopsis, quoted by Variety.

“This journey of truth will ultimately put his own faith to the test” as he seeks to “make sure that nothing undermines the sanctification of Karol Wojtyla [John Paul II’s birth name], the first non-Italian pope in 450 years”.

Ruffalo, 57, is one of Hollywood’s biggest names, with four Oscar nominations for his performances in The Kids Are All Right (2010), Foxcatcher (2014), Spotlight (2015) and Poor Things (2023). He is perhaps most famous, however, for playing the Hulk in a series of blockbuster Marvel films.

Santo Subito! will be directed by Italian filmmaker Bertrand Bonello, and features a screenplay by Thomas Bidegain, an Oscar nominee this year for Emilia Pérez.

The film is an international co-production involving French company Mandarin & Compagnie, Italian studio Indiana Production, and Warsaw-based company Madants. No release date has been announced.

John Paul II is regarded as a national hero in Poland, a country where the majority of the population identify as Catholics.

He is celebrated not only for becoming pope, but also for the role he played in offering hope during the communist period, as well as helping to undermine and ultimately bring down the Soviet-backed regime.

However, in recent years, John Paul II’s legacy has been the subject of debate, in particular over whether he was negligent in dealing with the issue of clerical sex abuse, both before and during his pontificate.

In 2023, a leading Polish TV station broadcast claims that, during his time as bishop of Kraków, the future pope was aware of child sex abuse by priests under his authority but allowed them to continue working in the church and may even have tried to prevent the authorities from learning of their crimes.

However, defenders of the late pope claim that the new evidence is unreliable because part of it comes from the files of the communist security services, which were hostile to the church.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons and Beyond Forgetting/Wikimedia Commons (both under CC BY SA 2.0)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.