← The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Matthew Petrusyk, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you for joining us. Hollywood is not known for being friendly to Christianity in general or Catholicism in particular, especially nowadays. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of storylines and characters that mock and even demonize believers at the same time. However, whenever the film industry wishes to depict a religious looking scene or add a transcendent element to the plot, it frequently employs Catholic architecture, Catholic sacramentals, and even Catholic priests to do so. So what should we make of this ambivalence to the faith? What does Hollywood get wrong? And perhaps to our surprise, what does Hollywood get right about Catholicism and the priesthood? And what do these portrayals tell us more broadly about the entertainment industry's potential openness to God's existence, the divinity of Christ, good and evil, and even life after death? Here to take a look at some pivotal classic and contemporary films that prominently feature Catholicism and Catholic priests with an eye to unpacking their significance for the wider entertainment culture is Bishop Robert Barron. And alert, there will be spoilers. Bishop, welcome back to the studio.
- [01:23]
B
Thanks, Matt. Always good to be with you.
- [01:25]
A
So today we're looking at the relationship between Hollywood and the portrayal of Catholicism in general and Catholic priests, Catholic priests in particular, Catholics. Before we get to that, have you seen any good or perhaps not so good movies recently?
- [01:38]
B
A few. Now this will be airing, I think after the Oscars and we're recording it prior to the Oscars. But I like to see some of the Oscar nominated movies. So I saw Sinners recently. I saw Marty supreme recently and I saw Hamnet and all were interesting in their own way. I'm gonna. Now this is kind of, I'll go on a limb now. This is prior to the Oscars and say Sinners is gonna win best picture. And I'm saying it for the same reason. I predicted years ago that the Shape of Water would win and indeed it did. So we'll see now if I'm right. I don't know. And I've actually written something on Sinners that'll be coming out. But you know, Hamnet I liked. I'm a big Shakespeare guy and Hamnet's an interesting look at, you know, the death of Shakespeare's son and how that influenced his, his writing of Hamlet. And anyway, I like that, that movie a lot. And, and then Marty supreme was interesting, you know, the movie about a ping pong hustler. And I kept thinking like, I just wonder why he CH why he chose this script of all the scripts. But it was, you know, quirky, interesting character study kind of movie. So I like that.
- [02:43]
A
Good. Well, it's a good bridge into our topic. Today we'll be looking at a few movies in. Bishop, you've been a film aficionado for a long time, and in fact, the first YouTube video you did was on Martin Scorsese's the Departed. So just please set the table for us. Just talking about the importance of film to you and to the ministry you founded. Word on Fire.
- [03:07]
B
Yeah, it's a good question. I think I got a lot of it from my mother. My mother loved movies, and she always talked about, and this goes back a long way with my mother, that she would go to movies as a kid and she'd watch the double feature. And my mother brought us to movies when we were little kids, and she always loved them, you know, So I did too, from the beginning. And I just think they're one of the great bearers of the popular culture today, you know. So, yes, books and, you know, journals of high opinion and all that. But you want to see what's on the mind of the culture. I think movies are very revealing, very telling. So I always felt from the beginning of my work to find religious themes in movies is a way to get into people's hearts, where if you begin just by appealing to, you know, high academic ideas, it might not do it. But if you can find something buried in the movies, which I think you can very often, it's a good evangelical strategy. So I like movies from the entertainment standpoint, but also as an evangelical strategy, I think it's important to use them.
- [04:06]
A
I know our listeners will want you to opine on this, but AI is now entering into the film space. What's your take on the use of computers to generate entire scripts, cinematography, everything?
- [04:19]
B
I don't like it. What is it? Whenever someone says AI, something in me tightens. I just don't like it. And the very fact that it's so good that it can produce a kind of simulacrum, both of consciousness, but also of artistic production. There's something about thinking something through and living through it, that your life informs what you're doing and that AI will never really be creative. It can't be. It's just taking what already exists and it's rearranging it or something. But like real breakthroughs of creativity, that's a matter of consciousness, of freedom and of spirituality. So that's what makes me nervous about AI that it will become a lazy substitute for real creativity.
- [05:10]
A
Also, I wanted to get your sort of your general take on this. This question as it has to do with the Hollywood film industry and the Catholic Church. And there seems to be kind of an ambivalence or maybe love, hate relationship there from the Hollywood side in this sense that, on the one hand, so much of what comes out of Hollywood, even to this day, celebrates values that are completely contradictory to the natural law and to the biblical view of morality. At the same time, however, anytime Hollywood wants to give a transcendent touch to a film, they go to Catholic spaces and oftentimes include Catholic priests. So what do you think explains that kind of highlight there?
- [05:47]
B
Well, there is something cinematic about Catholicism because we're a colorful religion and we use symbols creatively. I used to think when I was in Paris years ago, I go into the Sainte Chapelle, one of the most beautiful places in the world, and you look at this brilliant stained glass and you say, well, that's film in a way. It's these colored pictures telling a story. And so from the beginning, you go to the facade of the Orvieto Cathedral in Italy, and you look up at this magnificent and the right word is cinematic kind of display of biblical history in color and character. So I think there's always been a sort of affinity between Catholicism and its use of the symbolic, the artistic, the colorful, the pictorial, where, you know, let's face it, Protestantism often began with an iconoclastic move of. To get rid of, you know, the pictures and the statues and so on. So there's an affinity there, I think, between film, cinema and Catholicism. And I'll say more about this when we get into our topic. I think my old friend Andrew Greeley from Chicago said priests are fascinating and a lot of the fascination comes from celibacy. Andy Greely said that years ago he was a great defender of celibacy. And he said a lot of the fascination with priests comes from celibacy. And so films, I think, gravitate toward priests. They find priests fascinating. So those are a couple connections.
- [07:08]
A
So one more general question before we start looking at some of those films. One way that Christians in general have responded to sort of the general exclusion from Hollywood is to found their own film industries and make films that are unapologetically Christian, overtly Christian and marketed to Christian audiences. Do you find this to be a promising way of either making good films, you know, subsequently good films, or even of evangelization? Is this something that it's advisable?
- [07:36]
B
Yeah, I think it can be. Look at Angel Studios and the Chosen and all that. I think it's been a very, you know, positive things. So, sure, if that's a way to get around a very oppressive, let's say, film industry that's excluding religion at the same time. I mean, I think you can find ways in mainstream movies to bring biblical Christian themes into them and maybe that will give you a wider reach, you know, both. And I think, I think of Thomas Merton's line about, you know, a bad book about the love of God is still a bad book, you know, so if you're making a movie, hey, it's about, you know, Jesus. But if it's poorly made, poorly written, poorly acted, the cinematography is low, low level, it's still a bad movie, even though it's about the best possible subject. So the, the key is to, to tell the story, but using the best, you know, cinema techniques and acting and so on, you know, and there have certainly been examples of that in recent years. I mean, look at Mel Gibson's the Passion of Christ and, you know, movies made at a very high level that are, are clearly expounding religious points of view.
- [08:45]
A
Let's now look at some of those pivotal movies depicting Catholicism and Catholic priests. And the first on our list is the Oscar winning 1938 classic. So all the way back in 1938 classic Boys Town, with the iconic priest character, Father Flanagan. Bishop, say a little bit about the enduring significance of this film.
- [09:01]
B
You know, it's funny, we said 19. I would have said, I guess like 1940, but it's 38. Well, it's a movie I watched as a kid in Chicago. There was a program called Family Classics, and it was on Sunday afternoon. They always showed kind of classic movies. And that was always one of my Boys Town and the great Spencer Tracy, one of the best actors of that era. Right. And the very young Mickey Rooney plays this kind of tough kid, Whitey Marsh. Right. And I got a personal connection to that movie which is interesting. My uncle was a Christian brother. My, my mother's older brother and he was a Christian brother, went to school here in my diocese in Winona.
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A
Right.
- [09:42]
B
But as a young brother, he was assigned to Boys Town as a. I don't know what he was. He was a disciplinarian or something, but he knew Father Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town. And during the screening of the movie, they screened it at Boys Town. Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney came and my uncle said, he sat right next to Father Flanagan during the screening. And I said, wow, did he like the movie. And he said, he fell sound asleep on my shoulder. I always loved that. Cause it's really. It's not a movie you'd fall asleep during. It's. It's a very good movie. But I'll tell you a simple thing I really like about him, besides the acting and all that, is it portrays a priest doing something that's typically priestly, which is going into difficult places and difficult situations to bring the gospel. So the story hinges upon. Whitey has this older brother who's a gangster of some kind, right? And he's in trouble. And he says, the Father Flanagan, I want you to. To take care of my kid brother, you know. And so Flanagan goes into wherever Whitey was in some kind of like, you know, I don't know where he was. Bar or something. And, you know, Whitey is just playing this difficult, tough guy. And Flanagan is a tough guy, too. He's a kind of a man's man priest. And he handles it and he establishes the right relationship between him and Whitey. And Whitey is completely opposed to it, but he gets him to Boys Town. And then, you know, as the story unfolds through all kinds of ups and downs, but Whitey is sort of redeemed. He's redeemed, though, by Christ working through a priest who was willing to go into really dark, difficult situation. When I was teaching at Mundelein years ago, I say to the students, do you like sinners? Because if you don't, you shouldn't be a priest. I mean, you can be a religious person. You can theorize about religion. You can go to mass on Sunday. But if you. You want to be a priest, priests have to like sinners. I'm not saying you like sin, but you got to be able to go into the places where sinners are. And it might not be your thing, it might not be where you're most comfortable, but you move into those sometimes dark, difficult spaces. And I see Father Flanagan as an example of that, that he moved into Whitey's space and met with a lot of resistance and eventually brought him to redemption. That's what priests do. That's where they go.
- [12:13]
A
The second film on our list Here is the 1973 film The Exorcist, directed by William Friedkin. So, Bishop, give us a broad overview of the plot and your initial experience seeing it for the first time.
- [12:27]
B
Well, first, can I give you. There's another personal connection there. Friedkin, you mentioned who just died. Maybe it was last year or the year before, but I'm in my house in Santa Barbara. I'm bishop out there. And the secretary comes and she goes, there's a Mr. Friedkin on the line for you. And I said, william? William Friedkin. And she goes, I think I should know who he was. So I get on the phone and sure enough, he said, this is Bill. Bill Friedkin. I said, the director of the Exorcist and French Connection. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, long story short, his last movie was a documentary on the Pope's exorcist. Father Amor's, right? And he was interviewing people and he had stumbled on, I think I did a little commentary on the Exorcist many years ago on YouTube. And he stumbled on it, right? And he said, oh, let me talk to this bishop about the Catholic Church and exorcism. So Audi came to my house. He was 80 something at the time, seemed 20 years younger. Very youthful guy, a lot of fun, very interesting. Interviewed me about exorcism. And then we had lunch at my house and we met one more time. Freak. And I. Because on my desk he noticed these people giving these little Simpsons figure figurines, you know. He goes, oh, you like the Simpsons? I said, oh, I love the Simpsons. He goes, well, you know, in three weeks I'm gonna go for a table reading of the Simpsons. Cause I'm gonna be in one of the episodes, right? He goes, do you want to come? And I said, it was the pope, Catholic? Of course I want to come. And so I did. I attended a table reading of the Simpsons with William Friedkin. So that's how strange my life had become at that point. Anyway, that's my connection personally to the Exorcist. I wouldn't have seen it in the theater because I was too young. I would have been 13 when that came out. It was R rated movie, you know. When did I first see it? I don't know. Later on tv, I guess it was. You know, I slept with the lights on for six days. Yeah, I mean, it. It terrified me more than any movie I'd ever seen. I still think, number one, most terrifying.
- [14:31]
A
Why is that movie so stupid?
- [14:32]
B
Because it's not just startling, it's so deeply creepy. See, that's a distinction that Father Steve, the CEO of Ward on Fire, gave me. Startling is easy to do. Startling is a physical thing, like, so you see someone. But when a movie's creepy, it's unnerving in an increasing way. And that's what the Exorcist does, because you've got this young girl and these weird things. Are happening. And what's. They see doctors and they see psychiatrists. She's got a spinal tap, they're trying to figure out. And her behavior is getting weirder and weirder. And there's a younger priest who's seen as circa 19, you know, early 70s, kind of a hip guy, smart. He's a Jesuit priest. But he's really into psychology and really into, you know, I'm not an old fashioned. I'm a guy of the present day. And so he approaches it, you know, in a very kind of skeptical, secularized way. She's just got some psychological problem. But as he starts working with her, he's like, oh my goodness, there's something here that I don't know. You know, Bob Dylan's line, you know, something's happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones? I mean, it was that kind of thing for him, like, okay, until he, he realizes this is beyond me, right? At which point the old priest is called in. Father Merrin, played by the great Max Von Sydow, the actor again, who died not long ago, a few years ago, played Jesus, remember, in the great story ever Told.
- [16:03]
A
Oh, right, right.
- [16:04]
B
And he's still a pretty young man. They heavily made him up for. For the Exorcist. But he, old man, he knows what's going on. He knows this is not some psychological aberration. This is not a physical problem. The young priest, when the old guy arrives for the exorcism and he says, well, I've been analyzing her. I think there's dual personality. And he goes, no, no, there's one enemy here. And then he begins, he prays, he starts praying the rosary. And I remember now, this is some years later, I'd first seen it on tv. But then many years later, I knew the Exorcist in Chicago. And when the movie was re released, there was great interest in it. And Cardinal George at the time asked me because he don't want to reveal the identity of the exorcist. He said, would you be willing to talk to these people about exorcism and all that? So I was like a spokesperson. I thought I better see the movie again. So it's fresh in my mind. So another surreal moment in my life with the Exorcist of Chicago. I went to a theater in and watch the movie. Gosh, yeah, I know, it was terrifying. But I remember at that moment when the old guy has come, the old priest, and he starts praying. I said to the exorcist, next to me, finally, someone knows what to do. That we've been messing around in this movie with doctors and psychologists and all this modernism. Finally, someone knows what to do. And then, of course, the two priests perform the exorcism, right? So it's very interesting from that standpoint of real priesthood. Doesn't eschew psychology and all that, but its orientation is finally supernatural. If you're a priest and you're uneasy with the supernatural, you're in the wrong business. You don't get the fact there's a world beyond the world we can see. You're not at home with the mystical, the supernatural, the miraculous. You're in the wrong business, see? And the young priest, I think the movie's a commentary on the young priest, that he had lost his way. And the old priest is bringing him back online now. I'm going to give away the ending, but it's such an old movie. Everyone knows the ending by now, that both priests die in the course of the exorcism. Remember, the old guy dies of, like, he has a heart attack during this thing from the stress of it. But the young priest at the end, you know, says to the devil, come into me, right? And then he's thrown out the window, down the staircase, and he dies. And I think what's most interesting there is you have two priests who give their lives for this little girl whom they didn't really know. I mean, the young priests knew her better. The old priests barely knew her at all, but they gave their lives to save this young girl. And that lovely scene at the very end, I wonder if people remember, but what was her name? Reagan was the young girl's name, remember? So she's free now of the devil, and she and her mother are moving away. They want to get out of that house, understandably. And she sees this priest has arrived to say goodbye or something. The two are gone, the two exorcists. But she sees the collar and they come in tight. They show the Roman collar. And then she doesn't remember the exorcism at all. But something triggers the reaction. She goes up and she kisses him on the cheek out of gratitude to the priest. So to me, it's just a beautiful thing about the supernatural orientation of the priest's life, but also his willingness to die. The priest is willing to die to serve his people. I don't think he'll be embarrassed to hear me say this. I think he's talked about it. But Archbishop Chaput, the great former archbishop of Philadelphia, always said it's his favorite movie about the priesthood, the Exorcist, and that he would show it to his seminarians to give them a sense of what the priesthood is about. And I get what he means. I think he means exactly this. The supernatural orientation and then the willingness to go all the way to give your life for your people. So that's why I love the movie. Scary as all get out. Still spooky movie to watch, but it's ultimately about the priesthood, I think.
- [20:18]
A
Now, Bishop, you very frequently get requests to talk about demonic possession, and you often say, of course it's real, but we shouldn't focus on it. So how should we, especially from an evangelical perspective, recognize its reality but not do so in a way that sort of sensationalizes it and makes a difference there?
- [20:39]
B
Well, just what you said there. I mean, to recognize it, acknowledge it, realize the Church has means of dealing with it, but then let it go. Because the devil wants us to become obsessed with all these details. The devil typically works through temptation and insinuation and suggestion. And so he's got a lot of other ways to influence us, which he loves to use. So we should be aware of that, the spiritual struggle, and be aware that this other dimension exists and that the Church has a way of dealing with it. And I would just say focus on these heroic priests in that movie. That's really what it's about.
- [21:16]
A
The third film on our list is True Confessions, which stars Robert Nero and Robert Duvall, who just recently passed away.
- [21:23]
B
Right? Yeah. I remember seeing that movie and really liking and appreciating it. I mean, one is, you got two of the finest actors of the last, what, 50 years? Duvall. And then who else is in it? You've got. The great. Burgess Meredith is in that movie. There's really great acting going on. I'll just say something brief about it. It's set in Los Angeles. And so when I became bishop out there, that movie came back to my mind. De Niro plays this priest who is. He's just perfect. His suit is always pressed beautifully. His Roman collar is always in place. His hair is perfect. He's the bishop's assistant. He is in touch with all the leading figures of Los Angeles. He's a cool cat. He speaks at banquets. When he goes to play golf, he puts on this impeccable golf outfit with a little hat and a sweater. The locker room, everything is just perfectly arranged, you know? And it's a story about this guy who is deeply ambitious. He's moving in high circles. He's living a life that's very careful because he has this career ambition. We hear at a key moment in the movie that the bishop, the archbishop of LA is I just put your name in to become auxiliary bishop. And I've got every confidence it'll be accepted. And so it was like, okay, this guy's got it together. Well, the story unfolds because his brother, played by Robert Duvall, is a hard nosed cop in Los Angeles and he's trying to solve this really kind of weird kinky murder thing going on, right? So long story short, the priest is not like directly at all involved, but he kind of like by smear campaigns, gets indirectly implicated, you know, in that and he finds his whole thing falls apart with, with scandal and loss of reputation and he ends up though the movie ends, DeNiro now is an old man, this old retired priest, and he's a retired pastor in this parish way out in the desert east of la. It would now be the Diocese of San Bernardino, but in those days it would have still been LA Archdiocese. So he's way far away from the city and power and ambition and the church government. He's way out in the desert in this little parish and his brother drives out there and now they're both old men to visit him, you know. And what you notice at the very end of the movie is that he's completely liberated. This guy whose whole life had been just so, you know, buttoned down and tied to his ambition. He left all that behind, he's now detached from that and has found real joy and real peace in this simple life as like a desert pastor. And then the movie ends with he says, this is my grave. I'm going to be buried out here. And I've always loved it for a lot of reasons. But one is it talks about that shadow side of the priesthood that can take over. A priest, especially one who's gifted, can just get into this sort of ambitious route and becomes a captive of it. That's what I see in De Niro's performance. And he's a good guy and he's doing nothing bad, but he's just, he's captive, held captive by his own ambition. And when he was finally freed from that, he's able to find real joy and real peace. So I just like that, you know, Contrast.
- [24:43]
A
Of course, another pivotal film is the 1986 movie by Roland Jaffe, the Mission.
- [24:50]
B
Oh yeah, the Mission.
- [24:51]
A
So what stands out to you in this film of so many different things you could talk about? I address the role of the priest and the religious Particular.
- [24:59]
B
Well, you know, again, De Niro is in there and he plays. It's very interesting. I've talked about it in different contexts because he plays this desperate, hardened slave trader. Just his whole life is about capturing poor people and selling them into slavery. He's a terrible man, right. And it's a long story, but he undergoes this conversion and there's this beautiful scene where he compels himself to carry across this rough terrain, a net carrying all the accoutrements of his former life. Beautiful scene because his friends say, haven't you done enough? And they cut the thing and he goes, no, no, no. And he ties it back on and continues. So it's this great story there of letting go of an old life and converting. And he becomes a Jesuit brother right under the tutelage of Jeremy Irons, who plays this heroic Jesuit pries missionary in South America. And together they build this beautiful community down there, kind of a idyllic community of the native people whom they've converted to the faith. And they form this community, build these churches and they start educating the kids and so on. And then they get caught up in this terrible struggle. It's the time when the Jesuits were under pressure and they were going to be suppressed. And the. The powers in Europe wanted basically to eliminate this mission, right? And so the two priests, the priests, Jeremy Irons and then De Niro the brother, face this great dilemma, you know, I mean, how do we oppose these forces? And Jeremy Irons does it through non violence. The movie ends with he's carrying the Blessed Sacrament and remonstrance and with his people kind of huddling around him, walk toward those who are shooting at them and they just. They accept, they non violently resist. De Niro is part of a violent resistance, right? They both die, so they're both killed. And that's kind of really how the movie ends in this unresolved way. And here's my personal connection to this movie. In that movie, in a very minor role, is Daniel Berrigan. Now, I don't know if a lot of our listeners know that name, but he was very prominent back in like the 60s, 70s. He was a radical Jesuit, the Catonsville Nine. You know, he was part of this group that was burning draft cards and all that. He was a radical priest. Well, he's in this movie. He plays this older Jesuit, you know, accompanying the priest. Well, anyway, berrigan in the 90s, shows up at Mundelein Seminary, where I was to give a talk, and I'm on the faculty. So he was there and then afterwards he had a little session with the faculty. And so I said to him, you know, Father, I. I love the movie the Mission. And I know you're in that and wondering, what's your take on the. On the final scene? And he said, well, that's. The director just wanted to show these two options, you know, a priest, they're both priests with their people. One doing it non violently, one violently. And then Berrigan said, obviously I'm on the non violent side, but the director wanted just to show both of those. I just love the Jeremy Irons character, the priest. He has so many dimensions of it, you know, his courage, that he goes into this completely alien environment and expecting his death at almost any minute, but courageously goes into that and then brings the faith to the people, stands with them in their good times and stands with them in the worst of times and opposes the enemies with the power of the gospel and the Eucharist, you know, and just that image of him carrying the Blessed Sacrament with his people facing their enemies, that's a priest. That's a priest, you know, that's Maximilian Kolbe, and that's all kinds of people. So I just. I love that image of solidarity with his people, even to the point of giving his life.
- [29:11]
A
So the final film we have on our list here, and there's many more that we'd like to do perhaps for a future episode, is the 2014 John Michael McDonough film, which takes place in a post Christian Ireland called Calvary Bishop. The physical, the social and religious landscape in that movie is all so bleak. Do you think that it gives an accurate portrayal of the state of Christianity in Europe and Ireland in particular?
- [29:35]
B
Well, I hope not entirely. It's 2014, huh? So I would have been rector at Mundelein because I remember telling the students, go see this movie because it's a great movie about the priesthood, to put it in encapsulated form. It's a priest who finds out in the confessional that there's a young man who's going to kill him. Not because he's done something to him, but the young man had been abused. And he's in Ireland where that was a terrible issue. And it's simply out of his anger and desire for retribution. He said, I am going to kill you on Sunday. And so the movie unfolds as like a holy week as this priest is walking toward his own death. And he knows that all the while putting up with the worst abuse from the people around him, because, as you say, it's like it's suggesting the very worst of Irish antipathy now toward the faith. He's a formerly married man. His wife had died, then he became a priest. And so he's a guy with a lot of experience and so a lot of integrity. And he's facing Calvary. I'm like, constant, like they're spitting at him, they're spitting words at him, retribution at him, but he just is calmly going about his work of trying to bring Christ to them. And then at the end, succumbs. I mean, he accepts death and he is indeed killed by this man. When, see, at any moment he could have fled, right? He could have left, he could have have turned the guy in, but then he would have violated the seal of confession. But he doesn't. He walks through Holy Week and he walks his way up Calvary and accepts his death, right? So it's like the priest not just offering the sacrifice of Christ, but in a way becoming the sacrifice of Christ. Fulton Sheen said that, you know, the priest is not his own. Yes, indeed, that we offer at the Mass the sacrifice of Christ. But we also recall we're both priest and victim as Christ was, right? The priest, the ordained priest, is both priest and victim and offers himself as a sacrifice. My sense of that movie is it's a priest willing to offer himself as a sacrifice in reparation for the sins of the church, reparation for this terrible, you know, moral outrage. And then the movie ends with the priest's daughter. So from his married time offering forgiveness, right, to the man who had killed her father. That's what Christianity opens up. That's what it awakens, right? Is when we're willing to become identified with the sacrifice of Christ, forgiveness bursts into the world. So it's priest as sacrifice. That's what I'm noticing in Calvary. Very powerfully told movie. As we rehearse these. It's interesting to me that they are, in their different ways, pointing at the real radicality of the priesthood. If you construe it the right way, it's not just a nice guy doing social service for people. It's someone being conformed unto Christ with all that that means. That's beautiful.
- [32:55]
A
Before we turn to our listener question, Bishop, what's some general advice that you'd offer to filmmakers, those in the creative industries, both Catholic and non Catholic, on how to portray Catholicism and the priesthood? Some sort of do's and don'ts?
- [33:10]
B
That's a good question. You know, I guess take it with this kind of moral seriousness that it deserves. There are superficial ways. You can do it in a cutesy pie way or just look at the superficial appeal, certain things. Or you can do it in a hypercritical way, just be dismissal because it's full of corruption. Rather, see the real drama at the heart of it. Think too of Hitchcock's movie I Confess, about a priest facing the dilemma of breaking the seal of confession, that there's all kinds of drama built into the life of a priest and you don't have to trivialize things or just hyper criticize, but you can find that, that very dramatic space. And again, to quote Greeley, you know that priests are fascinating. And I remember when he made that comment, it was about the Thornbirds. Remember that novel made for tv and it's about a priest in Australia and all his ups and downs and affairs and various things. And father, why are people watching this? He said, priests are fascinating. So I think find the inherent drama within the priesthood and from the audience
- [34:21]
A
perspective, some general advice. How seriously should we take what comes out of Hollywood in terms of spiritual guidance and spiritual nourishment?
- [34:30]
B
Well, you know, what did Paul say? Test all things, I mean, and take in what's good and reject what's evil. There's a lot of nonsense coming out of Hollywood and a lot of triviality and a lot of silliness and stupidity. So, I mean, I get all that. But look at the ones we just talked about and they've cover a lot of years. There are, I think, spiritually serious movies that come out and when you find them, trumpet them, talk about them. I've often said, you know, a problem you'll face is, okay, well, Boys Town, I'll watch that from 1938. But anything that's past 1965 and things get a little too realistic. Well, I don't know. I don't think we can afford to be quite that squeamish. I think we can't be so puritanical that we can't take in the reality, the spiritual truth of these movies that are gritty, you know. But heck, the saints go into gritty places. I used to tell my students, because they would sometimes say, oh, how would you watch that movie? People with the F word and these terrible things. I used to say, whatever the Aramaic version of the F word was, I don't know what it was. What was the worst thing you could say to someone in first century? I said, trust me, Jesus heard it.
- [35:38]
A
Yeah, right.
- [35:40]
B
And so I don't think that should just be so. Oh, gosh, they did Terrible things in that movie. I can't watch it. The Bible, if you filmed it. At least an R rating. At least an R rating if you filmed the Bible. So I think we can be too squeamish about that. And it's not for everybody. Okay. I'm not gonna, you know, tell my grandmother. Oh, you would love the Exorcist. I'm out. But I don't think we can afford to be quite that puritanical.
- [36:09]
A
It is now time for our listener question. Today we have Philip from Gloucestershire in the UK asking about the relationship. Relationship between your work as the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and the great Saint Therese of Lucia.
- [36:23]
B
Okay. Hello, Bishop Baron. My name is Philip from Gloucestershire in England. I've just watched again the Catholicism series, and I read the credits at the end this time, and I see that there's a thanks to Saint Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, for making the impossible possible. I wonder whether you'd like to enlarge on that. Tell us the story behind that. I've got a great devotion to the Little Flower. Thank you very much indeed. Yeah, thanks for that question. I'd forgotten about that. At the very end of the credits. I think we say that. Well, she's one of the great patrons of Word on Fire, Thomas Aquinas being the other one who's played a key role in my life. The Little Flower. I can't tell the whole story. It's too involved. But when I was in France, I cultivated a great devotion to her, and I think she's been a great guide to our work because she's the patroness of the missions. And I really see Word on Fire, this evangelical work is very much mission oriented. And so we invoke her all the time. And I think that line just whenever we found things impossible. And when we're making that film years ago, no office or anything, we had no money. We had nothing. And we just had this idea, and we scraped money together. I often asked her to intercede, help us. And when we were filming, many times, you face just difficulties and obstacles and problems. And the economy collapsed when we were filming that thing, and so a lot of our donors backed out. So we just kept begging her all the time, you know, and I still do. So that's how she made the impossible possible. And, you know, I maintain that great devotion to her, and I think she's a guide to our missionary work.
- [38:11]
A
Well, thanks so much, Philip, for reaching out to us. If you would like to ask Bishop Barron a question for a future Word on Fire show, please visit askbishopbarron.com again. That's askbishopbarron.com we're always grateful to hear from you, Bishop. We're out of time, but thank you again for a very rich conversation.
- [38:27]
B
Yeah, that was fun, man. Thanks.
- [38:29]
A
That does it for us today. Thanks for joining us on the Word on Fire Show. If you're interested in learning more about how Word on Fire can help you grow closer to Christ, become a better evangelist with and for others, and work for the common good, consider joining the Word on Fire Institute. Check us out at institute.WordPress.org that's institute.WordPress.org and we'll see you next time.