LOS ANGELES: Leonardo DiCaprio meets Pope Francis to discuss environment

Hollywood superstar Leonardo DiCaprio had a high profile meeting with Pope Francis during a visit at the Vatican.

The Revenant actor, 41, wore a fitted black suit, crisp white shirt and black tie for the occasion, showing the religious leader the utmost respect upon their meeting by bowing deeply and kissing the pope’s ring, reported Us magazine. “Your Holiness, thank you for granting me this private audience with you,” DiCaprio said in Italian as he bent to kiss the ring. The duo met to speak about their shared concerns for the environment, and exchanged gifts as a sign of mutual respect. In a video clip of the meeting, DiCaprio gives Francis a book of the works by 15th-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, explaining in English that his father had hung the works over the actor’s crib while DiCaprio was very young. “As a child I didn’t quite understand what it all meant, but through my child’s eyes it represented a planet, the utopia we had been given, the overpopulation, excesses, and the third panel we see a blackened sky that represents so much to me of what’s going on in the environment,” the Oscar-nominated actor explained.PTI