Kevin O'Brien: An Atheist Who Became A Catholic - The Journey Home (12-15-2008)

you good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program every week I have the wonderful privilege of bringing to you men and women who following the grace of God the leading of the Holy Spirit in a variety of other ways that God gets their attention not only did they come to a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ but they came all the way home to the Catholic Church a lot of them that was the last thing they expected so they're here to tell their story I'm pleased to have as a guest tonight Kevin O'Brien you may have seen him a couple other times on EWTN he's got some stuff coming up you want to keep an eye out for that name Kevin is a former atheist he's here to tell his story but before I turn it over to Kevin I want to remind you that you're an important part of this program so we like to call later with a question for Kevin you can do so at one eight hundred two two one nine four six Oh outside North America 205 270 129 80 or you can send us an e-mail at journey home at ewtn.com welcome back Kevin you were just sitting here a couple hours ago yes of course the audience doesn't know they don't know that we know that yeah you interviewed me earlier today but it wasn't really me that's right that's the mystery that's right in fact some of you were maybe been fans of the wtn of the journey home for a while may have noticed in the past you were scheduled at least once before it's not twice before maybe things happen but you're here not just to do the journey home you've done a few other things while you're here and tell the audience what you and I did just a couple hours a couple hours ago in celebration of the pauline year i was st. paul and you interviewed the most famous convert to the Catholic Church paul of tarsus so I got to be a guest and I got to be Saint Paul which I am on stage many times in this day and age playing in the journey of st. Paul the show that we have touring but I got to be Saint Paul today with you and that was a real treat what's the name of your tour group again well our company is called the theatre of the word incorporated and that's going to be the name of a series that I'll be hosting on EWTN and we we call it the theatre of the word because John Paul when he was Carol why Tia had the theatre of the word in nazi-occupied Poland but we add incorporated because the word incorporated means the word become flesh and our philosophy is as the word became flesh and dwelt among us so we as actors and writers and producers take words on the printed page and flesh them out in dramatic performance and our most popular show this year has been the journey of saint paul where with only four actors in about an hour an hour and 15 minutes we tell the whole story of Paul's life and include some of his best writings and then we did a little bit of that today just a little while ago well in fact I I want the audience to see a little clip and I will say that I really enjoyed that time we were using a bit of a script of course but you did such a fine job I really felt like I was I want to stop and ask you other questions because you did such a fine job let's let the audience see a little clip from this afternoon's taping for example he told us that the Eucharist is just a symbol and that all early Christians like st. Paul felt the same way is that true did you believe the Eucharist was just a symbol we spoke just a moment ago of what the Apostles have passed on well I now pass on to you what I myself received 2,000 years ago and this is central to all the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread and giving thanks broke and said this is my body which shall be given up for you do this in memory of me in like manner also the chalice after he had supped saying this is the New Testament in my blood this do ye as often as ye shall drink in memory of me thank you very good that is excellent I excellent so audience keep your eye on EWTN schedule I'm not sure when we will broadcast that yet as a journey on home episode but that's when it will be so be broadcast but it was a real enjoyment a joy to do that with this happening and it's a real blessing to be able to travel the country portraying st. Paul that's that's an unbelievable experience it really is amazing you know I I know from my own experience doing theater that when you're learning the parts of a character it's more than learning the lines you're trying to understand you're trying to be that care understand that and I guess is learning st. Paul was an amazing experience for you yourself well and deciding what to put in the script was the first challenge because there's so much good material there how do you pick out enough to fit in an hour or an hour and a half worth of performance so that was the first challenge trying to make sense of how would Paul describe his life because we tell our story is a kind of flashback we begin with acts 25 where he is in Caesarea and he's called to tell his story to King Agrippa and Bernice and so he begins to tell it and then in flashback we see the famous conversion we see the persecutions we see his miracles and we get to hear his greatest writings along the way but I will say that I thought I kind of understood st. Paul the more I play him the more I think I understand him and you know he is such an amazing character because not only does he have this great zeal and love for God but his hymn to love from first corinthians is some of the most the most beautiful writing that's ever been been put on the on paper and so he covers such a vast spectrum from his his stern armor of god's speech to this wonderful hymn to love so we include all of that and try to really bring it home to the audience as we perform I almost put you on the spot today when we were filming the program because as I mentioned to the audience I got to the point where it was really great I'm sitting here with st. Paul and after you did that apart from first Corinthians Euler's some biblical scholars out there that say Paul didn't write that he was just quoting a hymn early Christian hymn I want to see enough did you right now there was nothing I was said yes I would have said yes I wrote it and I wrote stuff just as good as that because the Holy Spirit was with me that's what I would have said well but you're here tonight for your story and and you do have a story so I usually ask the gastic take a long step back and begin at the beginning and give us a little snippet of your early spiritual journey I was baptized we went to church a bit I went to a Lutheran grade school my parents were nominally Christian really we didn't practice it much I didn't hear it much it wasn't really modeled for me but I loved the stories at age 9 or 10 that young we were watching TV one night and I saw Madalyn Murray O'Hair the famous atheist she was being interviewed in a kind of contract confrontational Donoghue style where people in the audience the studio audience were asking her questions and they were being brutal with her because in those days you didn't hear people talk about being atheist it was a scandal these days it's a fad in those days it wasn't and as a young kid everything she said clicked with me and I thought she's right this is all a myth this is this whole religion thing is a way for people in power to control those who are out of power this whole Authority issue is a scam and I became as a young child an atheist and I was a vocal atheist and remained an atheist throughout most of my teenage years but the thing that began to change me was drama and being on stage I was me as for forget that was your family supportive of your decision what did you keep it to yourself I was a character you know I was an only child and I was always doing theatrical things I was imitating various people I would tell Sonny stories I would sing songs and so you know Kevin's an atheist now well that's part of who he is is he's just you know sort of the showman and a bit like rich little not remember which voice was his in the first place well kind of like that that's kind of like that another saying is this the real cares the real Kevin well they they were permissive they let me be they let me say what I want to say and believe what I want to believe and and it meant a lot to me I mean I was pretty strident about it and in fact my heart goes out to atheists of goodwill and I don't think there are as many of those as there used to be most of the atheists this day and age are atheist without any real courage and they are atheist who haven't thought it through much and they've just jumped on the bandwagon the atheists that my heart goes out to are the ones who say this is bunk and it's humbug and I want to find the truth and I want to broadcast the truth to as many people as I can because that attitude is the attitude that if they follow it will lead them to the gospel and if they broadcast the truth well God is truth I didn't know that at the time but I eventually discovered that through a very long and circuitous journey I will say as difficult as I must have been to live with as a teenager talking about my atheist beliefs and making fun of people who had faith everything came very easy to me as a high school student I did well in school I figured out the system and I worked the system I figured out how to be popular by doing theater and by doing what I wanted because I wasn't a jock and I wasn't a nerd but I kind of worked the system and figured it out and by the time I got out of high school I thought I've got it made I know everything I'm on top of this the other strange thing about being an atheist Marcus when you're an atheist you're convinced that the rest of the world is awash in superstitious religious belief after I became a Christian many years later I look around and I say where are all the Christians where are all these people of faith when you're an atheist you really have a kind of persecution complex and you really think that everybody is foolish and it's up to you to get them out of this and I felt that way but when I started doing drama see riously I was blessed with a very good director who was a stern taskmaster and he demanded everything of his caste we had to know the lines word-for-word before the first rehearsal we had to know them automatically so they just came out of us we would do musicals we had to sing and move and he taught us how to sing from the diaphragm so suddenly I was confronted with something that was physically challenging that was intellectually challenging from learning the lines and studying the roles I was playing and emotionally challenging because it required me to show forth my emotions on stage and the thing that frustrated me more than anything else was I couldn't make it happen I could do all the work and all the preparation and then in rehearsal or in performance I had to abandon it I had to in a sense lose my life to find it or lose my craft to find it and if the cast and I were not inspired in some way on stage we could do everything we had practiced and it would be lifeless kind of like a flat tire so at that point I began to say to myself I am having some sort of an experience of something beyond me and maybe this selfish overblown character that I was is a little wrong I called this thing the creative spirit because George Bernard Shaw the Irish playwright talked of the life force or the life spirit so not wanting to really buy into the Christian thing I said well maybe there is a spiritual realm and maybe there is something that I have to open myself up to and without which I cannot create a good dramatic performance so that was really the beginning of what eventually brought me into the church you made a step then from atheism to agnosticism essentially well I would say kind of a vague spirituality of vague spiritualism because I did believe in this spirit that I had tangible evidence of I would call it the Holy Spirit or at least graces from the Holy Spirit that enable as people any creative endeavor to do what they do because you could have all the perspiration you you can apply but without that little spark of inspiration nothing will happen you know the increase is mine saith the Lord we can't make these things grow on our own it really is beyond us so I did become spiritualistic and so much so that I began reading Karl Yune who was the disciple of Sigmund Freud and for some strange reason I read everything you mean he wrote you know probably 30 40 volumes of material what I loved about you was you as a spiritualist you was in fact I would say a gnostic is how I would term him these days but he was reacting against Sigmund Freud who said that we are nothing more than our neuroses and we are nothing more than our most based desires and you said no we have a spiritual component he didn't quite get it right human was pretty goofy in many ways but for a long time I read him and for a long time I had the sense that here's a man who's plugged into something here's a man who studies dreams I began to keep journals of my dreams and here is something that was feeding my my hunger for a religious experience but I will back up and say this people who are watching who know actors or who are actors who are who are in the theatrical or cinematic profession know actors are strange people we we are emotionally insecure we tend to be very childish we tend to be very self-centered but even actors who are secular and almost all of them are there are very few Christian actors very few Catholic actors even actors who are secular have an intense devotional nature they apply it to their craft because the code is when you're onstage you sacrifice yourself if your partner on stage forgets his lines you don't point it out you do what it takes to make the show keep going even if you sacrifice your own favorite monologue and you have to jump three pages ahead you do it because the show must go on if you're sick if you can hardly stand up you will go onstage because the show must go on actors in the midst of all of their concerns about their career and wanting to be famous in spite of that they have in their hearts this this hope of being able to give themselves over entirely to a dramatic role even if it's the spear carrier who's the third guard from the left so even as an actor I had a sense that what we were doing was in some sense religious and sacrificial because if you think about the dramatic arts what we do is we take printed words we flesh them out on stage and if we do it well there is a kind of communion that happens in the cast and then also in the audience and there is there is a tangible feeling that people get if it shows very good and it really impresses them and knocks them out and you have to live in this tight-knit community you and your cast you have to really be together and working and sharing with one another there are many elements of it that are religious and that mimic the church so I have that and I loved that and I had a call it was a vocation I would call it a minor vocation it's not like marriage or the priesthood but it is a vocation it's a working vocation and I knew it was a vocation because I was not happy doing anything else and I could not hold down a real job that's a great sign that you're called to do some it reminds me of when in that little great old Laurel and Hardy movies I think it was when they're lined up for the Foreign Legion and they want to have a volunteer well they volunteered because everybody else stepped back yes you know I mean that was there you are I mean you've tried everything else but I want to comment a little bit on some of you said though this this is this devotional giving of yourself that is in the artistic is that also but for many who do not have a trustworthy guide therefore that's why many artistic types are very vulnerable to getting drawn into other lifestyles I think says they give themselves complete that's exactly right that you're in a very vulnerable position when you're an actor on stage you have to trust your director if he tells you to do something that sounds crazy you've still got to do it and actors are always in this vulnerable position in their real lives people take advantage of actors right and left most most college graduate programs for acting are nothing more than mind games from the beginning to the end there's it's really a sad thing the way actors are treated in this culture and the way they starve and have to go sort of live hand-to-mouth in order to apply their craft so yeah well you have this vocation this vocation a vocation that I didn't really call a vocation a vocation that I I didn't know that it went beyond just loving to do theatrical performance and I was reading young and I was a spiritualist and then I got married and we had kids and suddenly my whole life changed and suddenly I realized this career thing that I was pursuing so intensely was not nearly as important as these kids and suddenly here were these creatures that I loved with all of my heart in a way that I could never have imagined and in a way that I couldn't plan for or stop and my wife at the same time and suddenly I began to think what's going on here I mean I was so I thought I was happy kind of living for myself in pursuing this career in the Dramatic Arts and then I looked back after I got married and had kids and said I was pretty miserable well one thing led to another and my kids would ask me occasionally daddy who's God what is God being an enlightened liberal I would say well nobody really knows there's probably something out there we're not quite sure who or what it is now I will say from an intellectual point of view I had come to a point where I was trying to figure out what was going on with this spirit thing this creative spirit and I had come to a kind of halfway house where I said it looks like whoever designed or whatever designed the world because it was clear to me that there was a design wants us to do something because I knew that I had a very limited career choice it had to do with the performing arts and I didn't choose that I was not the one who said that's what I wanted to do and so I came up with this word intentionality I said this creative force that's out there has an intentionality in other words kind of sort of wants us to do something and I didn't go as far as to say how can you have intentionality without intent or without will how can you have will unless you're a person I didn't follow the chain of thought but that's kind of where I was and then I had some difficulties in my life we lost a main client I was physically assaulted and my whole world was upside down and I had a lot of free time and I started reading and I was going to work my way through the duodecimal system so I started picking in the 0 zeros in the 100's most of those books are philosophy books and I saw a book God in the doc by CS Lewis an anthology of Lewis's writings so I started to read this man now Marcus sometimes I tear my hair out when I come upon atheist having been one myself but I have to remember that I had never saw a good model of the Christian faith my models of the Christian faith were televangelists and I thought these people are wacko these people are in it for the money and these people are telling us that we need to believe in something that cannot be true when I started reading Lewis I said here's a man who's a tremendous writer and who makes reasonable arguments for the faith somehow faith and reason apparently go together this was a revelation to me now Lewis kept talking about this character Chesterton GK Chesterton whom Lewis read so I went to the library got a book called what's wrong with the world started to read it by Chesterton great book I thought this guy's a better writer than Lewis this guys amazing and everything he's writing about is so modern and so contemporary and he must have written this book when Lewis was writing back in the 50s and yet it seems so contemporary and I looked at the inside cover what's wrong with the world was first published in 1910 and I thought what is going on here and then the more I read Chesterton the more I found not only a reasonable defense for Christianity mere christianity but a reasonable defense of the catholic church of all things but what finally happened to me was a kind of combination miracle and finally coming over my stubbornness I've been reading Lewis I'd been reading Chesterton and one night and I don't talk about this much at this point you haven't been setting foot in any churches or oh no no I was just reading it I found it very intellectually fascinating but one night I was walking in a cemetery at night where I like to walk because there was never anybody around in this cemetery so I was walking in the Sun was setting and I had been reading for several months these two authors and I was thinking if this stuff is true as they both claim it is I can't keep it on the Shelf it's not like Shakespeare that you'll maybe take off the shelf and then perform and then put him back on the Shelf if this is true I have to live this and I have to give my whole life to it and as I was thinking this I looked up and here was the chapel in the cemetery silhouetted against the sunset and at the top of the chapel is a protestant seminary was a simple cross and the silhouette of the cross and I saw suddenly flying over my head an enormous figure with wings and it lighted upon the cross and I thought this is the largest bird I've ever seen and I could then see by the movement of its head and by the ear tufts that this was an owl and I saw the silhouette of an owl sitting on top of the cross now I've taken a lot of hikes we used to live in the country it's very rare to see ours you hear them a lot you hardly ever see them here was this owl sitting on top of the cross while I was in a kind of halfway prayer state and I thought what would you say the great master of symbolism well what is an owl and owl symbolizes wisdom and I thought is God telling me that the apex of wisdom is at the top of the cross and then for the first time since I'd been a child I prayed and I prayed God help me stop this game I'm playing with money because I was working for a company and I wasn't being totally honest about my sales calls and the next day I said I'm going to be honest about this even though I think I'm going to be fired from this job I'm going to be honest about this I was working from home making sales calls and I picked up the phone to make a call and there was a message and it was from a theatre that I had called many months back who said we're looking for somebody to come here and do shows throughout the summer and we were really desperate and the summer time was our slowest time and I thought the for the first time that I tried to actually be a Christian BAM there was the confirmation okay you gonna work with me I'm there for you and I thought that really hooked me I mean that really hooked me I thought okay this is real God is telling me something and then we started going to church we started going to a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod because my wife had also been Lutheran at one point and it was close to us Geograph you're both your heritage is our heritage other and yet we even went to their quote journey of faith program or their whatever they call it sort of their confirmation preparation classes we went through the whole 13 week thing whatever it was my wife was ready to be confirmed and I said I'm not so sure and we talked to the pastor and I said what do you make of this six days of creation and what do you mean are you literalist it sounds like you're literalists about the bible he said well we're not fundamentalists but we take everything literally and I said well what about six days he said yes those are six 24-hour days I said what about the fossil record and he in so many words wrote off the fossil record and I said to my wife Karen I said we cannot join this church because the truth of faith cannot contradict scientific truth there can only be one truth so then we went to the other end of the spectrum Episcopalian we were Episcopalians we were even confirmed Episcopalians and I was the darling of the Episcopalian Church we went to in Webster Groves Missouri in fact I was part of their journey of faith preparation program but what really made me jump to the Catholic Church was we had a session in which our rector who was a lady priest or a priestess she called herself a priest presented the official quote Episcopalian position on abortion which was life begins at conception and a woman has a right to an abortion and the whole room pretty much said how can you hold both of these at the same time and she turned red and her little circle of supporters kicked in including a seminarian who then told us that we were being very outmoded that there was no real authority in even the 10 commandments these were just a temporary thing to get the Jews through the the wilderness that the letters of st. Paul had no authority that if he wrote letters to churches they would have no more authority than Paul's letters at which point I said if you were a Shakespeare scholar you couldn't get away with saying that about Shakespeare that he was entirely historically conditioned and there was no other meaning to him and I remember they their whole position they were proud of the fact that they could that they could compromise on truth and so I said to my wife I love this church the liturgy is beautiful the music is beautiful the art is beautiful the homilies are good but we can't go to this church and we certainly can't give the money and she said well what next and I said well I've been I bought this thing called the catechism of the Catholic Church and my wife said her famous last words I will be anything but Catholic and I said why she said because of their attitude toward homosexuals they're too judgmental and I opened up the Catechism and I said funny you should say that you can look these things up here pretty easily and I read her the two or three or four paragraphs and I said does that sound judgmental to you and she said no and I said well let's take the next step I was thinking as you touched a couple issues there in your own story that remind me of some of the issues we encountered this afternoon with st. Paul some of the questions you had in that that you had st. Paul answering that in a sense almost sounded a little bit like they were touching on your own journey things that st. Paul said about the reality of seeing the creator in the world around us because you had it one of the callers on our scripted programs everything was an atheist and then you also had a caller dealing with the homosexual issue yes the same way that's right well and in our stage show we put all this in we try to put as much in as we can about Paul and if people complain we say well you need to talk to the author because I just end the editor all right let's take a break we'll come back we're going to have your questions for Kevin O'Brien see a bit you you welcome back to the journey home our guest tonight is Kevin O'Brien thank you for condensing a life's journey into a short length of time it's always hard it's always difficult before a move on though I want to remind the audience that on Wednesday evenings at 9:00 o'clock Eastern Standard Time on EWTN radio I have the privilege of being able to lead a live scripture program deep in Scripture this week we've been doing during this year is inviting guests to join me on the program to talk about their favorite verses from st. Paul and our guest this Wednesday night is Scott Hahn and he's going to talk with me but having Scott on the program is getting him to limit his his choice to one scripture from st. Paul because he does the st. Paul Center loves st. Paul from beginning to end so please join me this Wednesday night Annie wtn radio at 9:00 Eastern Time my guess would be Scott Hahn else before we get we move on tell the audience if they want to find out more about your work what would they do well theater of the word incorporated which evangelizes through drama we have our journey of st. Paul show we have a pro-life show that's very powerful we have Socrates meets Jesus which we have the rights to adapt by Peter Kreeft which is a wonderful show all of this you can find out about from our website which is the word Inc org in other words the word Incorporated WWE word I ncor G and you can also call the toll-free number which is eight eight eight eight four zero word nine six seven three and we'll send you some stuff the website tells you a lot and we're doing some wonderful work and it's a great blessing to do it I have to thank father Joseph SEO from Ignatius press and everybody at Ignatius who's been very helpful in getting this up and running and helping us take these shows across the country without them this would not be happening all right excellent excellent all right let's take our first email this comes from Donald in chrome Colorado he writes Kevin my question to you is do you feel comfortable by relying on your fallible judgment to accept a infallible Authority what if the authority you accept is just a frank figment of your imagination thank you though well you know there's always that chance but having been through the whole circuit atheist fundamentalist Episcopalian and Catholic I can tell you that the confirmation for the authority of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church comes in thousands of different ways for example after I became Catholic the journey didn't end I struggled with the Church's teaching on some of the sex issues and it wasn't until after I began praying the rosary and trying to follow the Church's teachings seriously that whole new worlds of grace opened up to me for example if you take the Church's position on contraception it seems outmoded how can this be an infallible teaching then it seems unloving uncaring of course it does and yet when you look at what's happened since the pill when you look at what Pius the sixth said would happen when you look at how the Church's teaching is of one cloth so that if you pull out a thread the whole thing comes apart and sexuality from everything the church teaches about it abortion contraception masturbation pornography all of this is unified it's philosophically unified and it's unified in the heart that's one of the confirmations that what the Church teaches infallibly is true if if I didn't have these confirmations in a thousand different ways I would probably still be much more skeptical about it yes my authority is fallible but I see evidence and as speaking as a true skeptic I see evidence that the church's Magisterium is in fact infallible thank you thank you thank you Ken let's take our first caller this comes as look it's Kevin from California Oh Kevin what's your question for us tonight hello Marcus and hello Kevin thank you very much for the program I was curious Kevin about where you took your joy as a non-believer you spoke your aesthetic interests and your artistic interests but in the joy in the hope of the resurrection and salvation how would you compare and contrast those levels of joy and isn't the one rather tepid when compared with the other thank you Ken excellent it's the difference between dating a woman and marrying a woman it's the difference between having a nephew and having your own son it's the difference between something that points toward joy and something far deeper than you could ever imagine joy would be and st. Paul talks about that we cannot quite comprehend the the glory of the revelation that is to be that is to be shown to us so you know we all have our joys and we delight in our sins that's one of the things I mean what did I have I have what we all had I had my own special little sins that I thought were wonderful but that the more I now move away from them and repent from them and through God's grace turned toward him the more I see that those aren't Joy's those are prisons and the true joy the true joy is with Jesus Christ and with everything he teaches I wonder if part of your own journey of conversion was awakening for the need for more joy because I'm wondering if during your time of atheism did you think about the afterlife do you think about their meaning all the basic questions why am I here those cross your mind at the time or was a later awakening that brought those your mind I didn't really think it through that much it was more an emotional reaction to Authority and to what I saw as humbug than it was anything else it was sort of like saying the emperor has no clothes I took delight in that and that is a delightful and a noble calling to have to point out the foibles of those around you I was wrong but the good thing about atheists is that the good thing about atheists is that they begin with the first commandment thou shalt have no other gods before me and atheists are out there smashing idols right and left now they smash the Christian idol thinking it is mere really an idol but you've got to destroy these idols and so if an atheist becomes a Christian an atheist realizes that well we can have a zeal for our Lord and we can have a revulsion against these false gods because we already know what that's like because we don't want to practice credulity we want to practice faith I'm also wondering with as an actor where you were very comfortable comfortable may not be the right word accustomed to taking on another persona whether that was just the way you looked at religion in essence it's an artificial so people kind of got into her you don't have to be into that I I wasn't thinking about I just wasn't thinking I was emotionally reacting the thinking about religion is what got me into the Catholic Church the not thinking about religion is what kept me an atheist sorry okay let's see if we got an email from Brian in New York Kevin love your work that's in quotes and exclamation point so I've got a nice fan up there some actors refuse to take roles that they feel portray immorality or bad character others will take those roles making a distinction between themselves as actors and the roles they play what you think is the actors responsibility in choosing roles can one separate oneself from the role or is the unity of actor and role such that an actor must avoid roles that could be occasions of sin thank you Brian a lot there but there's a very simple answer actors should not be taking bad roles and they should not be in bad plays that's a hard piece of advice to give because if you're in the business and you're trying to make a living at it practically speaking you don't feel as if you can ever have the the the leisure or the leeway to turn down any role that's offered to you and yet why do we do this as actors we do it because we love the Dramatic Arts and we love the deeper things about it so we have to turn down bad drama and you know the hippies used to say what if they had a war and nobody came well what if they produced a bad movie and nobody agreed to be in it what if they produced a scandalous stage show and the actors said there's no way we're going to lower ourselves to that the culture would begin to change so yes we have to have integrity as actors now our patron saint st. Genesius is one of the few actors who is famous for his integrity Genesius was a Roman who was a pagan and he had the opportunity to play before the Emperor and to be in a play that mocked the Christian faith so he then became a catechumen a catechumenate he was he was studying the faith he pretended as if he wanted to become a Christian and so he learned a lot about it like any good actor does he researched his role then after he learned enough he withdrew from that group and said I'm ready to go I know the Christians I can really skewer them in front of the Emperor and my career is made and the story has it that in this play he was baptized in a scene that was supposed to mock baptism and the moment the water hit him he experienced a miraculous conversion of heart and began then to witness for the Christian faith and this is in front of the Emperor they said you know enough ad-libbing you're going to the dungeon and unless you recant that's it and he was a martyr they cut off his head so we have him to look to we have the fraternity of st. Genesius I pray prayers every day people can find out more about that I think it's St Genesius calm there is a whole organization that exists to reform our culture by praying for members of the theatrical and cinematic arts was it from his story that the tradition rose in vaudeville with the big hook that pull people off the stage I don't think so because you don't have somebody around the neck oh that's a Juris I think the Three Stooges did it oh it was yeah yeah what going along with that person's questions though they're talking about roles that are obviously bad obviously immoral okay what about the danger let's say in Hollywood where you have married men playing roles where they have to do a romantic relationship I mean the dangers of that are either they're trying to play emotions I don't think that's as much of a danger I will say that there are people who are very suspicious of drama and who find it difficult to differentiate between portraying a sin or a bad character and endorsing a sin or a bad character that actors sometimes have to play murderers or despicable villains and yet if it's in a context where their actions and their sins are shown to be what they truly are then it's justified in its legitimate and even perhaps a romantic scene where there's some kissing or something I think if it's done within a context and it's not part of the culture of death or part of the culture of pornography and perversion that an actor can give himself to something like that as actors we have ways of you know distancing ourselves from some of our roles otherwise I would walk around thinking that I was in fact st. Paul and I usually I'm aware that I'm not well but yeah and I was so much referring to the the puritanical issue of whether it's right for a married man to have a role like that but just it's the tension there within themselves and I'm what you're saying that really a good actor is able to make that division actors are so jumbled up with stuff that that's just part of it is part of it you know we know it's usually not the roles that stir us up it's our lives that we can't control our roles we got we've got that well something else has struck me as I was thinking about that was the idea of people getting pegged into certain roles because of what they choose and one person that comes to my mind is Anthony Perkins for example most of us maybe remember him from psycho well before that he had a great role in Hello Dolly it's a completely different character but after cycle I mean there he was for the rest of his crew right I'm gonna get any role where he wasn't considered he's got a little off there I mean that's something happens when you choose a role yeah that's right you've chosen a path anyway that's wrong you're that's rare for the rest of your life and that's really happened with me with theater of the word I have to be very careful about what roles I do and don't do we're doing more and more stuff on EWTN with the apostle of common sense hosted by Dale all quiz 2 we're going to be on the quest for Shakespeare hosted by Joseph Pierce which is supposed to premiere in March I think we're doing a lot of things at the network so I'm much more careful now much more than I used to be about the roles I take in the things I do all right we've got another email this comes from Rose and Utah I have a question for Kevin like Kevin my daughter decided at a very early age that she also was an atheist although I tried my best searching sending her to CCD classes and even making her first communion at heart and making her first communion at heart she has always been very skeptical regarding religion she now is 40 and I am worried about her salvation although she respects people who are truly religious can you give me any suggestions other than prayer thank you Rose for your email I mean first we don't want to discount prayer I mean that's the most important thing we condense right for conversion I think that everyone has an innate love of truth beauty and goodness it's getting harder and harder this in these days when there is very little truth there's lots of ugliness and there's lots of vice that is called virtue but she has as all of these young people do she loves by her nature that which is beautiful and true and good and so there may be still a way for her to come back and that is talk to her about things that maybe will draw her closer probably not rap music probably not you know trash novels but if she's got certain movies that she likes because they're beautiful or because they tell a story of Accra Feist maybe you could watch the movie and say you know why you know why I love this movie - it's because this character is is giving up everything for for the person or the other thing that he loves and isn't that really what what Jesus did if you think about it isn't love always about sacrifice there are ways I think without being preachy and without hammering people over the head because we're that's how we're made we know until we rest in him our hearts are restless so I would encourage her in that way and an end in prayer all right thank you we have a I think we have an email ready from Ohio Chris from Ohio writes Kevin what do you think is the best answer to what you call the current fad atheism you said your reaction against religion was primarily emotional what sort of reaction do you think Dawkins and the rest are currently having to religion thanks Chris for email well I'll tell you a little story my son Colin who's very bright my daughter Carrie is also very bright Colin is now in high school he is a good friend who's an atheist and who's what I would say a fat atheist and he said dad my friend told me that he read The God Delusion and that if I read The God Delusion he will bet me that by the time I finished that book I will no longer be a Christian I said Colin read The God Delusion and you and I will discuss it and we'll read Scott Hans book which this new one which is an answer to the God Delusion we'll look at some websites which talk about what are the holes and this man's arguments and I said we'll invite your friend I said tell him if you read The God Delusion and you're still a Christian he has to read a book and then we can start discussing books with him so my son this past summer read The God Delusion worked his way through it and trudged his way through it and you know we talked about it and then at the end he told his friend I've read the book I'm still a Christian and his friend said you know what I never really read it myself I think a lot of these fat atheists they bloviate they get on the internet they blog about stuff they talk about things I don't think any of them reads anymore I think they might read a chapter or two they may see an extract on a blog they may hear their friends talk about it I don't know how to answer the phat atheism because it's irrational how do you answer something that's irrational well I don't know I mean you know we just have to witness by who we are and what we do as all fashions and as all fads it will die out something worse will come to take its place but it will die out yeah so in fact I'm a little hesitant that we gave a little bit of promotional time to Dawkins book by mentioning the title because it's really not worth reading but I will recommend Scott Hans new book and I can't for the life of me think of the name right now maybe the producers will find it I'm sure it's on EWTN catalog so maybe it's I think it's called answering The God Delusion also answering the New Atheists yes answering the new atheist excellent book wonderful book as soon as I bought I gave to my son's who are fighting the battles of college you know my own son it's a great book and highly recommend that in terms of dealing with the city specificity kids that are dealing with that look we got one more email I think thank you comes from C Sumner hi Marcus and mr. O'Brien my son has earned recognition as an actor and is currently doing well as a senior college student in film editing and directing I find that the more active he is in the industry the more he ignores going to Mass praying etc he is surrounded by actors and industry people who are largely atheists with very inappropriate lifestyles my son thinks that he has to quote go-with-the-flow unquote if he is to have opportunities in film he is rapidly losing his faith how would you counsel someone who believes that compromise must be a part of his life in order to have a career thank you for your meeting well certainly compromise is not the answer it never is when we sell our souls we never gain the world we think we're going to and we never do we don't even come close what I can say is there is a hunger and a need for good drama out there when we started theater the word incorporated with the help of Ignatius press and Archbishop Burke and st. Louis was also very helpful in us getting this going I didn't think the market would be easy to work but I want to tell you something at this point we've discovered that if we wanted to I could get a Winnebago with my wife and kids and our actors and we could tour the country doing shows parish to parish because there's a real demand for it if your son does good Dramatic Art or good cinematic art there is a market for this and if he doesn't sell his soul and compromise he may not get the trash rolls and he may have to struggle for a while but what happens is you do get typecast but you will get typecast as somebody will say we need a good Catholic actor we need a Christian actor we need somebody who's done good stuff well what about so-and-so yeah and I know him he's really strong in his faith this is what we need to have happen we know about The Passion of the Christ film Bella all these other movies that are being made by Protestants and Catholics there is a movement out there for Christian filmmaking and Christian drama Jeremy Stanbury with Epiphany Studio productions st. Luke productions and Leonardo de Filippis these people are doing this around the country your son tell him that I say he's wrong if he thinks his career has to go down that trashy secular Avenue he needs to stand up and have integrity by doing so he will then cut his own career path and it happened to me and you know it can happen to others and if more and more start doing it critical mass will be achieved and we will have a true renewal of culture and what you mentioned earlier in your own journey was a discovering yourself that this was a vocation I mean that's kind of the key I mean if this is what God is calling a young person to do if they discern that call then they need to remember that they're there following God they want to do what's right with God believe that God's involved in their life and so you move out on that belief in prayer and faithfulness living your life trusting Lord with all your heart lean now to understanding and all your ways acknowledge him you'll direct your path and even if you don't believe in the Lord that song and chorus line what I did for love it makes every actor or theater person cry because it's true we're in this business for love and that's why actors are taken advantage of right and left because we love it and we're willing to do it for almost no money so I would say to the people out there who are in the theatrical and cinematic arts even if they don't believe in God believe in the love you have for your craft that love will lead you to God because God is love but but realize why you love it you're not just in it for your own success because the people who get great success in this business are never as happy as they think they're going to be alright the producer did give us the full title of the wonderful books written by Scott Hahn and Ben wicker and of course I always recommend anybody Scott Hahn but also anything by Ben wicker is very good very challenging the book was answering the New Atheism dismantling Dawkins case against God by against God on and been winner all right and it's on EWTN really just catalog I'd like to get that got a minute or so let's say there's an atheist watching right now if you'd like to say to encourage them to make the same journey of me if you're an atheist because you want to follow and preach what is true stick with that path I'm telling you as a Catholic who's paid a great price to come in all of my friends I had from from my world in my show business world before my conversion they're all gone and my wife almost all of her friends are no longer close to her anymore so I've paid the price I know whereof I speak follow the truth it will lead you to Christ ask yourself why the gospel story is the most satisfying story in all of literature even if you don't believe it find out why it's so beautiful thank you thank you Marcus god bless you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 33,676

Rating: 4.7711673 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television, Atheism (Religion)

Id: 2LWCq3y6FBM

Length: 56min 23sec (3383 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 23 2015