Saints are Not Angry: Reflections on Martin Scorsese’s The Saints

As a Catholic, I am grateful that a respected Hollywood filmmaker chose to spend his time and talents to produce a television show about, of all subjects, Catholic saints. After all, Martin Scorsese has been involved in dozens of films and television shows and has earned many awards and nominations throughout his long career. Holy Christian men and women rarely get star treatment from Academy Award winners.

For those who do not already know, Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints is an eight-part docudrama which recently premiered on Fox Nation. Four Catholic saints have been profiled so far in the series: Saints Joan of Arc, John the Baptist, Sebastian of Rome, and Maximilian Kolbe. In 2025, four more episodes are scheduled to be released, featuring Saints Francis of Assisi, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, and Thomas Becket.

There are probably many Catholics, myself included, who were nervous about how the producer of The Last Temptation of Christ would handle such a subject. But there is plenty of good news in the episodes that have been released so far.

In each of the episodes, The Saints admirably captures the different cultural atmospheres in which those saints lived: fifteenth-century France, first-century Judea, third-century Rome, and twentieth-century Poland. Unsurprisingly, considering Scorsese’s reputation, the acting and staging are well done, and some scenes, such as the death of Saint Sebastian, are memorably and beautifully photographed. Scorsese appears in every episode as a narrator to set the stage and fill in relevant details, and his narration is both effective and interesting, not preachy or awkward. Since both of Scorsese’s parents were actors, that too is not surprising.

I am grateful that there were many things that Scorsese chose not to do, things which would have made faithful Catholics cringe.

For example, Scorsese’s Joan of Arc is not a modern Mary Sue. That is, Joan is not depicted as that terribly overused stereotype: a female protagonist who is exceptionally talented, does everything extraordinarily well, and earns the admiration of everyone she meets. Instead, Joan is simply portrayed as a spirited and inspired young woman, and it is her faith, not her seemingly superhuman perfection, that makes her seem capable of leading an army. Even the decision to show Joan being physically examined (off-screen) to verify her virginity—an odd detail which didn’t happen in real life—is not unreasonable to show to a modern audience. After all, non-Catholics today need some help in understanding the meaning hidden in the title given to Joan by her French contemporaries, “Joan the Maid.”

Similarly, we can all breathe a sigh of relief that John the Baptist is portrayed as a Jewish man who is genuinely seeking and questioning God’s mission for his life, not the typical movie caricature of a Christian evangelist. In almost every contemporary movie and TV show where a Christian preacher appears, that character is inevitably revealed to be hypocritical, cruel, and selfish, except when Christians are calling the shots, as in this case.

The decision to include Saint Sebastian in this series is another happy surprise. Even Catholics admit that most of the stories about this early martyr of Rome are more legend than fact. Someone less sympathetic to Catholicism would have questioned whether Sebastian existed at all. Not only was Sebastian included in the series, but this episode shows great respect for Catholic tradition. For example, the scene showing Sebastian’s execution visually portrays popular Catholic images of Sebastian. That is, he is shown standing against a tree—reminiscent of Christ’s death—and with arrows sticking out of his body, just like the statues of him that can be found in the nearest Catholic bookstore. While Sebastian’s story could have been dismissed as fiction, The Saints treats it seriously rather than mocking it.

The black-and-white episode of Maximilian Kolbe’s life is particularly respectful of Polish culture. A statue of the Blessed Mother is shown in practically every scene. This episode also doesn’t whitewash the controversy about Kolbe’s public criticism of the wealthy, powerful people who were leaders in the anti-Catholic movement of Freemasonry, some of whom were Jews. Instead, the show directly responds to that criticism by showing Kolbe’s many acts of charity toward those in need, particularly Jews, precisely because he saw every man, woman, and child as his brothers and sisters.

However, as many other Catholic reviewers have noted, this TV series is far from perfect. While a storyteller has a right to tell the story the way he wants, Catholics have good reasons to quibble about some of the choices Scorsese has made.

For example, this series was not made for children. Faithful Catholics might be surprised to find blood, violence, and nudity in a show about saints. One has to wonder if these saints were selected just so the series could include battle scenes, a decapitation, a bloody execution, and naked men in a prison cell. Based on these episodes, we can probably safely assume that Scorsese is not considering Saints Margaret Mary Alacoque and Thomas Aquinas for future episodes since they had very few bloody or violent experiences in their lives.

At the end of each episode, Scorsese engages in a discussion with Fr. James Martin, author Mary Karr, and Georgetown fellow Paul Elie. Since Scorsese has called himself a lapsed Catholic, it’s not surprising that he would choose these three public figures. Karr has called herself a “cafeteria Catholic,” Elie is a contributor to Commonweal magazine, and Martin has caused considerable controversy over his approach to dealing with those who experience same sex attraction.

As an adult convert to the Catholic faith, I would have chosen very different interlocutors for a discussion about saints, so I did not watch these panel discussions.

But as I watched the episodes, I was reminded of the title of a popular book about saints: Saints Are Not Sad. When Frank Sheed, the famous Catholic writer and apologist, published this book in 1949, he had a clear goal in mind. Through the biographies that Sheed compiled for this book, he wanted Catholics to realize that saints were not a monolithic group of boring, two-dimensional characters with all the personality of a doorstop. As the title of his book points out, they were also not sad, dour, or humorless.

And they were not angry. Unfortunately, Saints Joan and John in Scorsese’s series are definitely and fairly constantly angry. While it’s certainly possible for anger to be righteous rather than sinful, these two characters seem to be driven more by a desire for justice than by their love of God.

Young Joan of Arc was terrified of being burned alive. She asked to see a crucifix while she was being executed, not because she wanted to shame her executioners and show them that she too was a Catholic, but because the sight of her Beloved gave her strength in her suffering. Every saint in the history of the Church has been driven by the same passionate love for God, not a mere desire to change the world. Otherwise, he or she may be inspirational and courageous but is not a Catholic saint.

A second problem with the series involves a misunderstanding about prayer. There is an odd moment in the episode with Saint Maximilian Kolbe in which he is shown praying with some Japanese men. The narration explains that Maximilian “learned to meditate” while in Japan. Since Maximilian was a deeply devout, highly intelligent priest who had received two doctorates in Rome, it is laughable to imply that he did not know how to meditate before he traveled to Japan.

But according to online sources, Scorsese practices Transcendental Meditation (TM), a meditation technique developed by a Hindu monk. This non-religious technique, which involves silence and the repetition of a mantra, has become a popular alternative to prayer.

If Maximilian learned about TM or Buddhist or Hindu meditation techniques from the Japanese people he met, he did so for only one reason: to lead them to Jesus Christ. Maximilian was a compassionate, approachable priest who could and would start conversations about the faith with other people everywhere he went. His brother priests repeatedly watched him begin discussions with atheists, communists, and fallen-away Catholics on train rides and in the streets. He brought about astonishing results by simply listening to other people’s arguments and then gently, articulately leading the conversation towards faith and love of God.

Catholic prayer, after all, is not about emptying one’s mind of everything, including God, but is instead about opening oneself to the presence of God. Or as Saint Thérèse of Lisieux described it (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2558):

For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven. It is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.

A final problem with this series is that while the stated topic is Catholic saints and while there are many Catholic elements in the shows, the stories lack a sacramental worldview. Yes, baptisms are shown in the episodes involving Saints John and Sebastian. Yes, priests are present, both good examples and bad ones. But there seems to be no understanding of the sacraments as ever-living, life-giving, masterworks of God, and necessary for salvation (see CCC nos. 1116, 1129).

The saints, however, did have sacramental worldviews. Joan ordered her soldiers to receive Communion before they went into battle. John’s baptism in the Jordan River paved the way for the sacramental baptism we receive today. Sebastian didn’t just tell people about Christ; he encouraged new believers to enter into the Church by being baptized. Maximilian’s understanding of the sacramental priesthood as a life lived for others is precisely the reason he offered to die for another man in a concentration camp.

Of course, the lack of a sacramental worldview in this series is certainly understandable based on the public statements made by Scorsese. It is certainly possible for someone to appreciate the trappings of the Catholic faith—remembering the holiday traditions, enjoying the inspiring stories, and drinking green beer—but not receive the heavenly food that the Church offers.

And that is very sad. What makes the saints perennially inspiring is not that they faced down corrupt bishops, corrected evil leaders, bravely faced death, or cared for the poor, but that they loved God. They were weak, ordinary people who placed their trust in God, not in themselves, and they were quick to admit that it was God, not them, who performed miracles in their lives and in the lives of others.

We can be thankful for Scorsese’s decision to produce these shows about saints. But we can also hope that other filmmakers, particularly fervent Catholics, will learn from this series. Perhaps we can hope that they will produce for us inspiring and faithful depictions of great Catholic saints, saints who are more joyful than angry, more focused on letting God into their hearts than about keeping Him out, and so hungry for sacramental grace that they can lead lapsed Catholics back into the Church.