Well known Movie Star and Emmy Award Winner, Shia LaBeouf has revealed he has now converted to Catholicism. LaBeouf has featured in movies such as: Holes , Transformers and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and was raised in a mixed Jewish and Christian Family.
The famous actor announced this in a 80 minute long interview with well the known Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester and former Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles, founder of the ministerial organisation ‘Word on Fire’ which reaches out to Catholics both lapsed and practising and anyone interested in the faith. LaBeouf stated that his conversion to the Roman Catholic Faith was due to his research and casting role of a new film about the life of Mystic and Stigmatist – Padre Pio (Saint).
Padre Pio was a Capuchin Friar of the Franciscan Order, he was an incredibly deeply prayerful and spiritual man with a deep love for Our Lord and Our Lady. From his early years as a youth, he experienced visions and felt a deep desire to ‘give himself over to God’. During his ministry, he transformed many lives, bore the stigmata, performed miracles and still transforms lives to this day. Even Shia LaBeouf, it would seem!
When Shia was researching this most amazing Saint for his role, he admitted feeling ‘drawn to spirituality’ whilst battling deep-rooted feeling of shame and suicidal ideation. ‘I had a gun on the table’ said LaBeouf, he continues ‘I was outta here’. He claimed he didn’t know where to go anymore in life and no longer wanted to be alive. However, he feels that being placed in this role it was all a part of Gods Plan in drawing him nearer and nearer. ‘I know now that God was using my ego to draw me to Him. Drawing me away from worldly desires. It was all happening simultaneously,’ he explained. In learning about the Catholic Doctrine of Atonement and Forgiveness, it allowed him that ‘second chance’ and ‘hope’ he didn’t think he was worthy of.
Also to note in the interview was that the Emmy Award Winner described how the Traditional Latin Mass saying it ‘deeply, deeply affects me’. Saying that the Traditional Form of the Catholic Mass was a ‘key in both his conversion and his performance as an actor playing Padre Pio’. Bishop Barron asked how come?
In his reply he says ‘they’re not selling me a car’ he elaborates on the how Novus Ordo Masses can some times come across as ‘selling an idea’ whereas the Latin Mass feels as you are being ‘let in on something very special’. He says the Latin doesn’t affect his understanding and that sometimes its about understanding something more deeply, he expands and says when he watches Pio’s Masses that he feels deeply and seems more powerful to him than trying to understand every single word.
Heaven and the Angels rejoice at the conversion of a sinner. Thanks be to Almighty God and the power of St Pio of Pietrelcina for this wonderful conversion. We pray for many more and a deeper understanding in the beauty and tradition the Sacrifice of the Mass.