Culture & Arts 3 min read 3h ago · Updated August 25, 2026 at 02:52 UTC

Pope Leo XIV Meets Blues Brothers Star

Pope Leo XIV met Blues Brothers saxophonist Blue Lou Marini in an unscheduled encounter at the Meeting of Rimini 2026.
The pair exchanged gifts: the Pope presented rosaries, whilst Marini gave him Ray-Ban sunglasses identical to those worn in the 1980 film.
Marini said he regretted not having had time to engrave the glasses with the words 'Papa Cool' before handing them to the pontiff.

Pope Leo XIV fulfilled a long-held personal ambition at the weekend when he met Blue Lou Marini, the saxophonist of The Blues Brothers Band, in an unscheduled encounter on the sidelines of the Meeting of Rimini 2026, a major annual cultural gathering of Catholic inspiration held in northern Italy.

An Unplanned Exchange

Marini was appearing at the event with the group Blues4People, whilst the Pope's attendance formed part of his official papal programme. The meeting between the two was not on the schedule. The pair exchanged words and gifts: Pope Leo XIV presented Marini and his wife with two rosaries, whilst Marini gave the pontiff a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses — the same style worn by the musicians in the 1980 film, and, according to photographs from the era, the same style that Robert Prevost himself favoured as a young Augustinian friar in Chicago during the 1970s, dressed in clerical suit, fedora hat, and dark glasses.

Marini later said he regretted not having had time to engrave the glasses with the inscription "Papa Cool" before handing them over.

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A Film and Its Unlikely Admirer

The Blues Brothers, released in 1980 and based on characters created by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd for the American television programme Saturday Night Live, drew together a remarkable assembly of American musical talent: James Brown, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin — who performs Think in the film alongside Marini's saxophone solo — Steve Cropper, Donald Duck Dunn of Booker T & The M.G.'s, and John Lee Hooker. The film was a commercial success, though it also attracted criticism at the time for its treatment of religion and religious figures.

Among those untroubled by such concerns was the young Prevost, then studying in Chicago, who counted the Blues Brothers among his musical heroes. The film's central comic conceit — that Jake and Elwood Blues were on "a mission from God" to save a Catholic orphanage — carries a rather more literal resonance now that its one-time admirer leads the Catholic Church.

Significance of the Encounter

The Meeting of Rimini, which brings together figures from culture, the arts, and public life each year, provided the unlikely stage for an encounter that neither party had anticipated. The moment illustrates how Leo XIV's pontificate has, from its earliest months, been marked by an informality and personal warmth that has attracted considerable attention — and, it appears, the occasional pair of sunglasses.

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