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From Skid Row to St. Peter’s with Mark Forti
How One Conversation with a Homeless Man Became a Twenty-One-Year Pilgrimage—and an Extraordinary Gathering at the Vatican. American inventor, artist and filmmaker Mark Forti shares his journey across continents.
Twenty-one years ago, on Skid Row in Los Angeles, a homeless man named Murphy Holmes changed my life. He told me the key to life could be expressed in seven words. Naturally, I asked him what they were. He smiled and refused to tell me.
Instead, he handed me five questions and said that if I truly wanted the answer, I would have to discover it myself.
At the time I was a young entrepreneur and filmmaker with plenty of confidence, strong opinions about God, and all the certainty that usually accompanies insufficient experience. Murphy appeared to possess almost nothing. Yet he had something I didn't. Peace.
That unlikely conversation became a twenty-one-year pilgrimage through sixty-three countries, interviewing everyone from tribal chiefs, Hindu sadhus, Buddhist lamas, Muslim imams and Jewish rabbis to Orthodox priests, refugees, genocide survivors and internationally known figures such as the Dalai Lama and the Nechung Oracle of Tibet. Asking the same five questions again and again gradually became Why in the World-a film exploring where humanity is the same, where we differ and whether those differences ultimately matter.
I could never have imagined that Murphy’s humble conversation would eventually lead back to Rome - or that representatives of the religions and cultures encountered during the journey might gather at the Vatican to watch the film together. Yet that is precisely what is now taking shape.
A Second Pilgrimage
When I arrived in Rome this July, I had little more than a week to see whether such an event was even possible. Friends warned me that Vatican bureaucracy was surpassed only by North Korea. This was not especially comforting. I walked through the colonnade with an Italian journalist colleague Marco Colombo and considered the task before us.
Fortunately, I soon discovered something important. While paperwork may move slowly, people do not. Every time someone watched the trailer, another unexpected door opened.
Veteran Vatican journalist Massimo Franco graciously pointed us toward Monsignor Dario Edoardo Viganò, who welcomed us at the beautiful Casina Pio IV in the Vatican Gardens. Monsignor Viganò immediately understood the film's emphasis on encounter and encouraged us to contact the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue.
Within days we found ourselves warmly welcomed by Monsignor Indunil Janakaratne Kodithuwakku Kankanamalage. Our meeting quickly became much more than a discussion about showing a film.
Monsignor Indunil immediately recognized that the five questions at the heart of Why in the World could themselves become an occasion for dialogue. He even suggested that Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad might answer those same questions for the film and invited the visiting religious leaders to the Dicastery for conversation and fellowship.
It struck me that something unexpected was happening. The film was no longer simply coming to the Vatican. The Vatican was beginning to enter the film.
Doors Keep Opening
Throughout those days, I repeatedly returned to the Holy See Press Office to share developments and seek guidance. Matteo Bruni, Cristina Ravenda and Vatican correspondents including Annaliese Taggart of Newsmax and Elise Ann Allen of Crux offered encouragement, practical insight and valuable introductions.
Then another remarkable encounter occurred. Walking around Rome, I happened to be carrying a copy of Inside the Vatican magazine. On its cover was Father Agnello Stoia, the Franciscan parish priest of St. Peter's Basilica.
After several attempts - and more than a few memorable encounters with the Vatican Gendarmerie - we finally met him. Father Agnello is a towering, energetic Franciscan whose warmth fills a room before he speaks. We showed him the trailer. He was visibly moved. Then he embraced me.
What followed felt less like a bureaucratic meeting than another scene from the film. Father Agnello led us through St. Peter’s, speaking about its history, saints, architecture and living spiritual meaning. He suggested arranging a symbolic opening of the great doors of the basilica for the interfaith delegation and offering the visitors a private tour.
He also helped us pursue permission through Cardinal Gambetti to film during the period surrounding the 400th anniversary of the dedication of St. Peter’s Basilica and is helping to arrange the baciamano ceremony where our distinguished guests will be able to personally greet the pope at the papal audience.
Among the guests expected in November are remarkable musicians, including Fra Alessandro Brustenghi - the “Voice of Assisi” - and renowned Ukrainian singer Alina Pash. The possibility arose that they might sing for the delegation inside the basilica.
A Franciscan tenor from Assisi and a Ukrainian artist singing before religious leaders from several traditions in an otherwise quiet St. Peter’s Basilica: the image captures the spirit of the entire project better than any promotional description could.
The surprises continued. Through a young Roman woman named Nadia Accetti, we attended Mass at the Church of the Artists in Piazza del Popolo and met Monsignor Guillermo Karcher, the gracious Argentine priest who served for many years alongside Pope Francis and now works in the Secretariat of State Cardinal Parolin. He kindly explained that meeting the Holy Father is not something one improvises. There are official channels for the baciamano, the traditional greeting of the Pope.
That sent us first to the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See and eventually to the Vatican Post Office, carefully mailing letters to Ambassador Brian Burch and Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
Rome, I was discovering, has a wonderful way of turning every apparent detour into another chapter of the pilgrimage.
The deeper we went, the more doors opened.
Before Dawn
Perhaps the most extraordinary moment will come before sunrise. Gianni Crea, the Vatican Museums' legendary clavigero, has graciously agreed to welcome our guests into the Vatican Museums before dawn.
Carrying thousands of keys, he unlocks the galleries one by one before the world arrives. The image could not be more fitting. Murphy once handed me five questions. Now another keeper of keys will open another journey.
The morning will culminate in the Sistine Chapel, where Orthodox iconographer Jonathan Pageau will help explain the symbolism of the masterpieces to guests representing Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and other traditions. The purpose is not to erase differences. It is to encounter one another honestly. Plans also include gatherings in the Vatican Gardens, a meeting at the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue and, finally, the screening of the film Why In the World.
Among those expected are Lama Tenzin Choegyal, Fra Alessandro Brustenghi, Jonathan Pageau, Rakesh Bahadur, Alina Pash and many of the remarkable people whose stories have shaped the film over two decades.
The Hidden Story
Looking back, what surprises me most is not the access we were given. It is the generosity. Again and again, a trailer became a conversation. A conversation became a friendship. A friendship opened another door.
The process of organizing the Vatican screening began to resemble the making of the film itself: improvised, improbable and sustained almost entirely by the kindness of people who believed that genuine encounter still matters.
And beneath every conversation stood Murphy. He had no title. No office. No followers.
He did not know the Dalai Lama. He had never entered the Vatican Gardens. He could not have imagined a cardinal answering his five questions or religious leaders gathering beneath Michelangelo’s ceiling because of something he said. He simply told one person the truth.
Modern culture teaches us to measure influence through wealth, followers, access and visibility. Murphy possessed none of these. Yet a conversation almost nobody witnessed crossed continents, entered monasteries and temples, survived wars and personal tragedies, and is now drawing people of different faiths toward one another at the heart of the Catholic Church.
The world had overlooked Murphy. Providence apparently had not.
Perhaps this is the hidden story of Why in the World: the kingdom of God often enters history quietly, through people whom history does not yet recognize. A mustard seed is planted. A fisherman answers a call. A beggar rebuilds a church. A stranger is welcomed without anyone realizing that an angel has entered the room.
Or a homeless man speaks honestly to a cynical filmmaker on Skid Row. Twenty-one years later, the doors of St. Peter’s begin to open.
The November gathering will celebrate a film, but its deeper purpose is encounter: the person before the label, the story before the stereotype and the image of God before every category that obscures it.
Murphy never set out to bring the world together. He changed one person. Apparently, that was enough.
Mark Forti spent over seventeen years exploring fifty-three countries on six continents to film his debut feature length film "Why in the World." During hundreds of hours of interviews and adventures, he asked five basic worldview questions to a staggering variety of people. The questions seek to discover how we humans are alike, where we differ, and whether the differences matter.