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A film about a Hollywood Priest disrupting the entertainment industry
Editor’s note: Angelus reviewed a work-in-progress version of “Hollywood Priest: The Story of Fr. ‘Bud’ Kieser.”
With his imposing 6-foot-6 stature, steely jaw, and a heart on fire for the Gospel, Father Ellwood “Bud” Kieser, lovingly known as the “Super Priest,” once cut a larger-than-life figure from the pulpit of St. Paul the Apostle Church in Westwood. The stars in the pews included Jerry Lewis, Jane Wyman, and Ricardo Montalbán, in a time when much of Hollywood still went to church.
This priest was truly gifted
Father Ellwood “Bud” Kieser on a TV in “Hollywood Priest: The Story of Fr. ‘Bud’ Kieser.” (Paulist Productions)But twenty years after his death, a new documentary details how Father Kieser also brought the church to Hollywood: Paulist Productions’ “Hollywood Priest: The Story of Fr. ‘Bud’ Kieser” takes audiences to the center of the limelight, with insights into Father Kieser’s influence on show business and how he navigated an industry that grew away from the moral compass of the Catholic Church.
Father Kieser landed at St. Paul the Apostle, a few miles from Beverly Hills and Hollywood, after arriving from Philadelphia in the 1950s. A Paulist priest, he had been formed to evangelize through media. The film recounts how while teaching his popular adult inquiry classes for Catholics and curious non-Catholics, he captured the attention of one attendee, Joe Connelly, the writer-producer behind “Leave It to Beaver.”
Read more A film about a Hollywood Priest disrupting the entertainment industry
The pilgrimage of Pope Francis to Assisi with the poor
With a pilgrim's staff and mantle, Pope Francis entered Assisi's Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels with 500 economically or socially disadvantaged people and the volunteers who walk alongside them. The pope's pilgrimage to Assisi Nov. 12, 2021 was dedicated totally to the poor in preparation for the celebration Nov. 14 of the World Day of the Poor.
Welcoming the poor and disadvantaged
Pope Francis arrives for a meeting with the poor at the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels in Assisi, Italy, for the World Day of the Poor; photo: CNS photo/Paul Haring
A France-based charity, Fratello, brought 200 poor pilgrims from France, Poland, Croatia, Switzerland and Spain. The Jesuit Refugee Service's Centro Astalli brought refugees from Congo, Angola and Nigeria. The Community of Sant'Egidio brought the residents of a shelter for the homeless located just outside St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. And Italian diocesan Caritas volunteers brought hundreds of the people they work with each day.
Six of them shared their stories with Pope Francis – stories of crime and prison or of drugs and alcohol, stories of being forced to flee their homeland or living on the street, but especially stories of steadfast or newfound faith, of finding a helping hand and of learning to see the face of Christ in the poor.
The crowd kept applauding to encourage Sebastián, a Spaniard, as he struggled with sobs to tell his story of drug addiction and prison. He said he was convinced "that my sins could not be forgiven because I had done so much evil" until he met a priest, who introduced him to the charismatic renewal movement.
Qadery Abdul Razaq, an older Afghan refugee who had worked with the Italian army, thanked the government for getting him and his wife to safety and Caritas for providing housing and food and help with their resettlement. But, he said, "we thank them most of all for treating us like their parents and not like children." His voice, like Sebastián's, broke as he pleaded with the pope and the Italian government to help get his adult children to Italy as well.
Read more The pilgrimage of Pope Francis to Assisi with the poor
Indian diocese offers incentives to couples with many children
The Syro-Malabar Catholic diocese in Kerala state has announced a family welfare scheme that offers financial assistance to couples who have five or more children. The Diocese of Palai offers the INR1,500 assistance to couples who were married after 2000.
A Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in India; photo: syromalabaraz.orgWomen with three children will be entitled to free pre- and post-natal care in Church-run hospital while the fourth or subsequent child will have access to scholarships. The scheme was announced as part of the "Year of the Family" celebrations of the Syro-Malabar Church amid heated debates over a proposed population control legislation of the government that seeks to penalize couple who have more than two children.
Read more Indian diocese offers incentives to couples with many children
Loving our Neighbor through Dialogue
Pope Francis in his Fratelli Tutti, no. 216 says: “To speak of a ‘culture of encounter’ means that we as a people, should be passionate about meeting others, seeking points of contact, building bridges, planning a project that includes everyone.”
Polarization abounds—it seems to be everywhere in our world today, and unceasing. We find it in our families, neighborhoods, political systems, on the news. How can we, as Catholics, respond to this division in our world? In his encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis urges Catholics and all people of good will to seek “a better kind of politics, one truly at the service of the common good” (no. 154). In Pope Francis’ vision, we can see one another as members of one family. We can seek to encounter. We can identify common values. We can listen to understand. We can seek the truth together. In this way, we as the Church can respond to the call “to sustain hope, to be a sign of unity… to build bridges, to break down walls, to sow seeds of reconciliation” (no. 276). Using the tools of dialogue can help us to do exactly this.
Dialogue as an act of love
Some might say that dialogue is too simple of a tool to create the radical change the Holy Father envisions. Pope Francis calls us to take another look. Engaging in dialogue across the boundaries of experience enriches our life of faith at home and in the wider community. The process of encounter, which invites us to relationship, is one way that we show our love for God, neighbor, and self.
A Roadmap to a Better Community
Editor: Roger is a long-standing friend of many La Salettes in the United States. He is an alumnus and recently shared these basic profound truths on his Facebook page concerning building any kind of community—your own family, work environment, parish or religious community.
Lately, I've been fascinated by the DIY (Do It Yourself) network programs where people build off the Grid... The way communities used to do. I especially love the series Maine Cabin Masters where they tackle 50-100-year-old cabins on the Maine lakes and inlets and update them.
After a while, one can pick up the pattern:
- Ask the owners what they would like to see kept and what they want changed.
- Level the foundation... otherwise everything built on it will fail.
- Check the main beams to see if termites, ants, or other forms of rot have weakened the structure.
- Add more windows to let in more light.
- Tear down excessive walls and dead space to provide freer open space to spread more light.
- Update all the utilities to provide basic needs: food, warmth/cooling, plumbing, inviting gathering spaces... and comfortable bedrooms.
The film, “Only Murders in the Building” – an old-school-style comedy
I subscribe to far too many streaming services as it is, and adding another, especially one like Hulu, whose content interests me one out of a hundred times, really makes no sense. But my daughter and grandson live with us and there is a particular animated series on Hulu about talking trains.
Living with a three-year-old who is obsessed with all manner of “choo choos,” my daughter wisely signed up, and now I have Hulu on my “smart” TV. How smart I am to allow this device to capture all kinds of information and transmit it back to some underground bunker in Nebraska so that I might be more efficiently packaged and marketed to is another question.
Read more The film, “Only Murders in the Building” – an old-school-style comedy
The Daily Call to Gospel Discipleship
Editor: The following is a collection of five reflections by Fr. Normand Theroux, M.S. on gospel discipleship and its parallels to the message and mission of the La Salette Apparition. His scholarly approach and his easy writing style make these reflections not only understandable but also inspiring.
The Calling of Matthew by Vittore Carpaccio
(1465-1526); photo: Web Gallery of ArtTo be a disciple of Christ means to follow Christ. It means to be so taken up with the Person of Christ that one's sum of priorities, one's reason and purpose and rationale for living are Christ alone. This following of the Lord leaves no area of life uncommitted to his Person and it involves to full capacity all the sectors of human existence. The call to discipleship is strictly personal: Christ calls each one personally and each one has his own path to the Way, the Truth and the Life of the Master.
Day One: Do We Have an Intense Desire to Follow Christ?
Scripture: Matthew 4:18-22 (The call of the first disciples)
As [Jesus] was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him.
He walked along from there and saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him.
Matthew 9:9 (The call of Matthew)
As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.
Reflection: One of the Lord's criteria for the choice of any disciple is that the latter be obviously unqualified, unfit, or both, to become his follower. We think of Matthew the public sinner-tax collector; Simon the Zealot fire-eater; the untutored fishermen Peter and Andrew, James and John, and Judas. The "normal" qualities of basic piety, devotion to the Word of God, some elementary orientation toward things religious, do not seem to have entered into question in the choice of disciples. (Nor should we forget Saul, who, at the time of his call by Christ was the Himmler of early Christians.)
Disciples of the Lord, then, are not born, but made. They become such under the tutelage of the Master. More to the point, they learn discipleship in his presence. That continued inner, heeded presence of Christ in the life of a disciple is not merely important, it is a bone-basic essential. We are to conclude, it would seem, that Christ calls people to discipleship by name and gives little consideration to degrees or pedigrees. Further, the call is to himself alone. That call is pure grace, pure gift. The disciple, then is not summoned to a cause, a philosophy, an ideal, a way of life, not even to a Scripture. He\she is called to a Person: to serve, honor, worship, and especially love this Person with all his life to the outer limits of his human resources.
Flannery O’Connor and our inner ‘Misfit’
Every Lenten season for the past few years I’ve made a point of reading a book that I know I ought to read but have been avoiding. This year I’m reading the work of Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) in “A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories.” I first read one of her novels when I was in college and found it too bleak. But now, my more mature mind and more experienced heart are finding the 20th-century Catholic author’s fiction illuminating in ways I never imagined possible.
Flannery O'Connor Don’t get me wrong. Traveling with her characters through their dark days and wrenching internal conflicts is no walk in the park. It is tough work, actually. They are stories of violence, ignorance, abuse, despair — all burnished with a carnival freak-show overlay which conveys a sense of horror.
Tales from the deep south of the United States
Her tales are set in the Deep South during the Jim Crow era, and all the pathologies and dysfunctions of that time and place are not just present but magnified. Perhaps the grotesque reputation that much of the American South still suffers from to this day (even when so many know it as a delightful part of the country to live, work, and raise a family) may be partially O’Connor’s fault, who used the world she knew to write stories dusted with the macabre.
Part of the author’s aim, I think, was to graphically plumb the depths of the caverns of sin in the human soul for the reader. In this there is nothing special, as there are countless books of psychological horror, crime, and violence that do the same.
Her stories about the “appalling strangeness of the mercy of God”
Flannery O'Connor in 1962; photo: CNS photo/AP Photo, Joe McTyre via PBSRather, it is her purposes for doing so that are special. She didn’t mean to simply titillate and horrify as many of her fellow novelists did and still do. No, she measured out the depths of human wretchedness so that we could stand amazed, with her, at the “appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.” to borrow that perfect phrase from Graham Greene, another great Catholic author.
We are meant to experience that no matter how deep the ancient fault lines of original sin may lie, they can overflow with the torrent of grace that gushes from the Savior’s side. The magnanimity of God flashes upon us, her readers, as she forces us to come to a stop and think: thousands upon thousands of human years of vile acts, casual cruelties, and stony indifference to our brother’s suffering have not begun to exhaust God’s tender clemency.
Her short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
In her short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” one of her characters, the Misfit, a murderer on a random killing spree, expresses the vast implications of our redemption.
“If He did what He said, then it’s nothing for you to do but throw away everything and follow Him, and if He didn’t, then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can — by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness.”
First confess our sinfulness and then get in touch with the Lord’s mercy
This is the conclusion that all of O’Connor’s works point toward. All of us — man, woman, child — have but one way out of our natural condition of “no pleasure but meanness”: coming face-to-face with our sinfulness, discovering we cannot conquer it on our own, and throwing away everything to follow the One who can and for some inexplicable reason does.
For O’Connor’s characters, that first step is the hardest one. Almost all of them seem to stumble around in a tragic blindness of spirit, entirely unaware of the cruelty of their acts and the pitilessness of their treatment of others. When they do feel compunction and aim higher, they are quickly defeated by habits of thought, the smallness of their minds, and the narrowness of their vision. They remain trapped by conceit and self-satisfaction.
This brings me to another purpose of O’Connor’s — the one which I found particularly fitting...: to show us that we are just like them! We do not begin to see the wounds we inflict on others, or the edifices and habits we build to daily soothe our complacent consciences. Can we really claim to be superior to her characters, who were largely supine in the face of the grave societal injustices of the Jim Crow era?
Faith and Our Modern Times
We have our own modern day systemic cruelty that we’ve become accustomed to, but it does not seem to stop us in our tracks. The sexual liberation that our culture prizes above all goods is built on the backs of abased women and the deaths of untold numbers of unborn children. We live in a society that values personal satisfaction and comfort, usually at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable. Do we stand and protest against today’s grave sin and refuse to be a part of it?
So far, it has been a spectacular time for me, thanks to O’Connor. I’m dragging a very humble heart up the hill to Calvary. Not humble enough, I’m sure. But I can thank her for showing me there’s enough “appalling mercy” at the foot of the cross to make up the difference.
(Republished with permission of Angelus News)
A virtual tour of a piece of Venice
Paolo Veneziano (about 1295-1362) was the master of the premier workshop in mid-14th-century Venice and is considered to be the father of Venetian painting. “Paolo Veneziano: Art and Devotion in 14th-Century Venice,” at the Getty through Oct. 3, is the first monographic exhibit on the artist ever mounted in the United States.
A Triptych of Veneziano
The Getty presents numerous paintings produced in Veneziano’s workshop (including Michael the Archangel, Mary Magdalene, and St. Anthony), characterized by fine detail, beautifully expressive figures, and extravagant color. The cornerstone of the exhibit is a reassembled triptych of a kind popular at the time as a means of personal devotion. These small-hinged pieces, generally depicting narrative scenes from the life of Jesus Christ and populated liberally with saints, folded flat and opened with the two side-panel-like shutters.
The highly refined panels originally formed a larger ensemble but are now scattered across various collections: “Annunciation” at the Getty Museum, “Crucifixion” at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and “Seven Saints” at the Worcester (Massachusetts) Museum of Art.
The Crucifixion by Paolo Veneziano, about 1340-1345, currently on loan to the Getty from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; photo: J. Paul Getty MuseumThe reassembled triptych is an almost exact replica of, and displayed alongside the original, on loan from the National Gallery of Parma, Italy. The bottom part of the central panel, however, likely depicting the Virgin Mary and child as in the Parma triptych, is missing.
Other highlights of the exhibit include examples of carved ivory, illuminated manuscript, and woven silk also produced in 14th-century Venice.
The project was undertaken in collaboration with The Frick Collection in New York, which has loaned its splendid 1358 “The Coronation of the Virgin” for the exhibit. An introductory Getty-sponsored webinar provided additional context.
Veneziano is often associated with the Byzantine tradition, but his work really resists pigeonholing. He chose as his home base his native Venice, with its rich cultural heritage, over the more au courant Constantinople or Tuscany. In fact, the city was an artistic hotbed at the time, as well as the leading center for the production of painted altarpieces — the idea for which very likely originated in Veneziano’s workshop.
Venice – a center of trade and art
Venice was an important center for the pigment trade. The best ultramarine, or lapis lazuli, came from Afghanistan. This deep, brilliantly saturated blue was much more expensive than gold at the time and was typically reserved for very important commissions: the robe of the Virgin in the Getty’s “Annunciation,” for example.
X-radiography and infrared imaging show the places where, beneath the gesso, gilding, and paint layers, Veneziano pasted pieces of fabric to reinforce unstable parts of the panels. X-rays also reveal holes showing the position of the nails by which the panel was attached to the underlying frame.
The missing panel remains a mystery as do the exact composition, history, and whereabouts of the original altarpiece(s). Following the intersecting trails of the various parts, their arrival at the Getty, complicated by COVID-19, is a drama in itself. Still, all the external detail began to make me feel the way I did in high school biology class after we’d dissected a frog: I much preferred sitting quietly by the pond and communing with a live frog.
What’s really interesting is Veneziano’s phenomenal flair for visual storytelling. Go to the Getty, or look at a close-up of a photo of, say, his “Crucifixion” — on loan from the National Gallery of Art and in the reassembled triptych forming the upper part of the central panel.
Visual storytelling at its best
Triptych by Paolo Veneziano, about 1340, tempera and gold leaf on panel. Galleria Nazionale, Parma; photo: J. Paul Getty MuseumMarvel over the softly burnished golds, vermilions and malachite greens. A lapis lazuli angel holds a vessel to catch the gilded stream of arterial red blood gushing from Christ’s breast. Two other angels gather the blood flowing from Christ’s hands; a fourth hovers, fluttering, praying.
A weeping Mary Magdalene, auburn ringlets cascading, kneels at the foot of the cross to caress Christ’s mutilated feet. To the left, Mary, in lapis hooded robe, swoons, supported by attendants. John, in a garment of rose-pink, lettuce-green, and azure, gazes prayerfully upward.
The richly dressed, well-fed centurion stands to the side of John, eyes on the cross, hailing Christ as Redeemer and King. Two Roman soldiers flank him, one with a paunch and an arrogant pout stares the viewer insolently in the eye. The other gazes sidelong, sheepish, also at the viewer. They are the only two figures who avert their gaze from Christ — and who lack haloes.
Keep in mind that these panels would have been viewed by the light of a flickering candle. Which made it all the more heartbreaking to learn that, though intended for personal devotion, the costly triptychs were often kept closed in order to protect the inner panels!
A delightful and stunning Virtual Tour...
So here’s our chance to go to the Getty virtually (see video above), and bring the panels from Paolo Veneziano’s workshop alive with our bodies, hearts, and minds. Now’s the time, across the centuries, to marvel at the craftsmanship, gaze at the panels, and descend into the stories they tell.
Or as Mary said, bowing before the angel Gabriel, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
(Reprinted with permission of Angelus News)
Scuba-diving faithful honor Christ underwater
Imagine a pilgrimage where the faithful gear up with scuba fins and oxygen tanks or snorkel sets rather than hiking boots, sun hats and trek poles. That's what happens in the crystal-clear waters of the Paradise Gulf along the Italian Riviera near Genoa. Pilgrimages to the bronze statue of Christ of the Abyss, an 8-foot-tall sculpture submerged 56 feet below the surface of the sea, were featured in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, July 28, 2021.
The statue, located offshore halfway between the small coastal villages of Camogli and Portofino, was the first known statue of Christ to be placed in the sea as a sign of his peace and protection for those who live, work or play by the water, to be a place of prayer and to commemorate those who have died there.
According to Italian news, sports and tourism websites, the idea came from Genoa-born Duilio Marcante, the so-called "father" of underwater diving education. The statue's home would be near where Marcante's friend, Dario Gonzatti, died during a dive in 1950. Gonzatti, Marcante and Egidio Cressi created and tested the first prototypes of "Self-Contained Oxygen Breathing Apparatus" (ARO) in those waters.