UK appoints first religious freedom envoy

Maya Hawke as American writer Flannery O’Connor in the 2024 film “Wildcat.” / Credit: Oscilloscope Laboratories

CNA Staff, Apr 12, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

A new film depicting the life of American writer Flannery O’Connor, whose work reflected her Catholic faith and frequently examined questions of faith, morality, and suffering, will be released in theaters on May 3. 

The movie follows O’Connor as she struggles with a lupus diagnosis at age 24, the same disease that took her father’s life, and dives into an exploration of beliefs. Actress Maya Hawke portrays O’Connor, and her father, Ethan Hawke, directed, co-wrote, and produced the film.

The inspiration for the movie came from Maya Hawke, who created a monologue from entries in O’Connor’s “Prayer Journal” for an audition for Juilliard, to which she was accepted. After performing her monologue for her family, they were blown away. She said that ever since, she’s had a personal connection with O’Connor and eventually asked her father to help her make the movie.

Executive producer Eric Groth, a Catholic and the CEO of Renovo Media Group and president of ODB Films, told CNA in an interview that he was drawn to the movie because “we [his company] really love to bring beautiful, good, and true stories front and center and that certainly focus on things of a Catholic nature.”

“I hadn’t read a lot of Flannery, I had read a little bit, but I was very intrigued by her and who she was and how important she was in the 20th century as an author,” he added. “And I was very fascinated by the fact that there hadn’t been a lot of things produced about her or her stories.”

However, what attracted him the most to the film was the “family element.” 

“I love that Ethan and Maya were doing something as a father and daughter and even Ethan’s wife, Ryan, was one of our lead producers and all of Ethan’s other kids found their way into the film as well,” Groth said.

Groth pointed out that he believes this story is important to tell today because “the culture can really learn from her.”

“I think she had a really great ability to converge all her faith with what she was living out in her day,” he explained.

The producer shared that in his eyes, O’Connor “kind of flips grace on its head. We kind of put God in a box and think if God is going to deliver grace it’s going to come through this really nice channel … I think Flannery says, ‘Look, God can deliver his grace in any way, any time, any fashion.’”

He continued: “People need to know that God is there, God is present, and we can look and see that God’s grace comes from all different things.”

Groth hopes that viewers will “walk away with a tremendous appreciation” for the 20th-century Gothic-style writer.

“She saw the messiness of the world, and that messiness — God is in the midst of it, that God enters into it and that our lives are messy,” he said. “I want people to walk away seeing somebody who saw that and understood it. I want them to walk away seeing a young woman who suffered terribly from a disease that ultimately took her life, but that she pressed on.”

He added that he hopes the audience will see that “we’re called to seek that relationship with God and it’s going to be difficult at times, but also that we can be victorious and that we can look to see how God’s going to deliver grace to us in all kinds of ways.”

Watch the trailer for “Wildcat” below.

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Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington, Texas. / Credit: CBS News Texas/YouTube

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 5, 2023 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
Carmelite nuns of the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington, Texas, filed new theft and … […]

Washington D.C., Apr 8, 2019 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has criticized Vice President Mike Pence for his views on gay marriage, saying that his civil marriage to his same-sex partner has led him closer to God.

Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, contracted a civil marriage with his partner Chasten, in a June 2018 Episcopalian ceremony.

Before he became vice president, Pence was Indiana’s governor from 2013 until 2017. In that office, he supported an attempt to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman, and signed the 2015 Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law. The act was criticized by gay rights activists as permitting discrimination by religious organizations.

“My marriage to Chasten has made me a better man,” said Buttigieg, speaking April 7 at a fundraiser for the Victory Fund, an organization dedicated to electing homosexual political candidates.

“And yes, Mr. Vice President, it has moved me closer to God.”

Buttigieg said that he wishes “the Mike Pences of the world would understand” that he was born gay and that he cannot change this. “Your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator,” Buttigieg said.

Both Pence and Buttigieg are baptized Catholics, but neither attends Mass. Buttigieg describes himself as a devout Episcopalian. Pence attends an evangelical church and has described himself as an “evangelical Catholic.”

Earlier this year, a brief controversy arose after it was announced that Pence’s wife, Karen, had taken a job teaching art at Immanuel Christian School. Immanuel Christian School considers homosexual sex acts to be “moral misconduct,” and employees are not permitted to engage in or support these activities.

Pence has denied criticisms that he is “homophobic,” saying that his support for traditional marriage law and religious freedom initiatives, including Indiana’s 2015 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, are not borne of homophobia.

Pence said in 2015 that Indiana law “does not allow businesses the right to deny services to anyone.”

In 2015, he said on Twitter that “If I saw a restaurant owner refuse to serve a gay couple, I wouldn’t eat there anymore.”

The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is a lifelong partnership between one man and one woman. While teaching that homosexual acts are in themselves disordered and sinful, the Church also says that of those who experience same-sex attraction must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.

Fr. Thomas Petri, O.P., Petri, vice president and academic dean at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC, told CNA that the Church’s view on human sexuality is rooted not only in tradition and scripture, but also in the natural law.

“Quite simply, the Catholic tradition going back not only to Judaism but to the natural law is that sex is ordered to procreation and the raising of children. Sex brings a man and a woman together in a union that is not only life-giving but also bond-creating. It’s a union that cannot be simulated by any other type of genital activity,” Petri said.

“Insisting that sex can or should work any other way is to lie to oneself in a desperate attempt to justify a disorder of sexuality and self-image.”

Petri told CNA that he rejects Buttigieg’s claim that God creates anyone to have a homosexual sexual orientation.

“To further conclude that God positively wills people to have disordered desires approaches the line of material heresy and flies in the face of what Christians have believed about God for two thousand years,” he said.

Last week, Pope Francis said that experiencing homosexual desire is not itself sinful, likening the experience to a disposition to anger, and underscoring the Church’s teaching that only acts, including acts of the will, constitute sin. The pope also noted an increasing sexualization of young people in society, and cautioned parents against making assumptions about their children’s sexual orientation.

On Meet the Press on Sunday, Buttigieg also defended earlier remarks in which he appeared to question President Donald Trump’s belief in God, suggesting that Trump’s Evangelical Christian supporters are hypocrites.

Trump, said Buttigieg, is not following scriptural imperatives for believers to care for widows and immigrants, and therefore is not behaving in a Christlike manner.

“The hypocrisy is unbelievable,” said Buttigieg. “Here you have somebody who not only acts in a way that is not consistent with anything that I hear in scripture in church, where it’s about lifting up the least among us and taking care of strangers, which is another word for immigrants, and making sure that you’re focusing your effort on the poor–but also personally, how you’re supposed to conduct yourself.”

Self-described white born-again/evangelical Christians voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016, with 81 percent in favor compared to only 16 percent voting for Hillary Clinton.

Historically, white evangelical support for Republican presidential candidates has never fallen below 74 percent. In 2016, the Protestant/other Christian vote split was nearly identical to the 2012 election.

Catholics, particularly Hispanic Catholics, supported Trump in 2016 at higher levels than they did Mitt Romney in 2012. The last time a Republican presidential candidate won majority support among Catholic voters was George W. Bush in 2004.

In response to Buttigieg’s comments on biblical imperatives, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked the mayor about his thoughts on abortion. Buttigieg, who considers himself pro-choice, said that he thinks abortion is a moral question that should be decided by a woman and her doctor, not by “a male government official imposing his interpretation of his religion.”

The Church teaches that abortion is the deliberate ending of an innocent human life, and is a grave sin.

Dr. Chad Pecknold, associate professor of systematic theology at the Catholic University of America, told CNA that Buttigieg offered “a very selective account of Christianity.”

“Mr. Buttigieg invokes Christian authority wherever it can be made to agree with his politics, and yet finds it irrelevant wherever it disagrees,” said Pecknold.

“This approach makes Christianity into a political plaything. This is perfectly illustrated by the way Mr. Buttigieg claims that public policy should favor the poor, but not the unborn. When he calls out other politicians for their Christian hypocrisy, it’s less a matter of theological expertise than a case of the pot calling the kettle.”

“Authentic Christian political thought does not choose between those who need to be protected and defended,” Pecknold said.

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