Latest Posts

menu

Post Library

3/16/2018

Spreading the Gospel at the Movies

Do you think that film is an effective way to spread the Gospel?  If not, why not?  If so, which film(s) would you include on a list that is “effective” in spreading the Gospel.  And why?

Director’s Reflection

Dear Companions on the Journey,

The recent Academy Awards show and my own Paulist vocation got me thinking about the power of motion pictures to tell a story and to persuade. The Paulist Fathers, using various media, have produced full-length motion pictures to advance the Gospel.  These have included stories of Archbishop Oscar Romero (Romero) – whom Pope Francis will probably canonize before the end of the year – and Dorothy Day (Entertaining Angels).  Executive producer, the late Paulist Father Bud Kieser, thought that Romero’s and Day’s lives were “rich in Gospel density” and that they would inspire those who are already Jesus-followers as well as those who were searching for meaning.

Recently, former president of Notre Dame, Fr. Edward Malloy, C.S.C., enumerated what he thought were the ten greatest “Religious Themed Films.”   They are:

  1. Babette’s Feast (1987)
  2. The Mission (1986)
  3. Of Gods and Men (2010)
  4. Calvary (2014)
  5. A Man for All Seasons (1966)
  6. Silence (2016)
  7. Molokai: The Story of Father Damien (2008)
  8. The Way (2010)
  9. The Gospel According to Matthew (1964)
  10. Diary of a Country Priest (1951)

Do you think that film is an effective way to spread the Gospel?  If not, why not?  If so, which film(s) would you include on a list that is “effective” in spreading the Gospel.  And why?

What do you think?

And let us pray for/with one another.

Michael

The Paulist Center