Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 82
August 26, 2014
Metaphysics and the Case Against Scientism
Detail from "The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas" (1468-1484) by Benozzo Gozzoli (WikiArt.org)
Metaphysics and the Case Against Scientism | Christopher S. Morrissey | CWR
Edward Feser’s new book, Scholastic Metaphysics, makes a strong case for the contemporary relevance of St. Thomas Aquinas’s philosophical reflections on Aristotle
The fundamental structures of reality go beyond what even physics is capable of studying. Modern science has forgotten that humanity actually does possess a tradition of rigorous intellectual inquiry that has been able to probe, painstakingly and fruitfully, beyond physics. The name of this venerable intellectual tradition is “metaphysics,” and the Catholic Church in her universities and seminaries has long recognized its key role in the life of the mind.
In his new book, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (Editions Scholasticae, 2014), Edward Feser (website) shows how the Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics developed by thinkers who take key ideas from Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas is still relevant today. When Aquinas himself engaged in the most heated academic controversies of his own time, he formulated highly influential interpretations of Aristotle. They have become a precious inheritance because of their permanent achievement with regard to clarifying how to fundamentally understand nature.
The great strength of Feser’s book is how well it exposes the shortcomings of the speculations of contemporary analytic philosophy about the fundamental structures of reality. The most recent efforts of such modern philosophical research, shows Feser, are remarkably inadequate for explaining many metaphysical puzzles raised by modern science. In order to properly understand the meaning of humanity’s latest and greatest discoveries, such as quantum field theory in modern physics, an adequate metaphysics is urgently required, now more than ever.
Feser devotes a great deal of space to showing how contemporary analytic philosophy tries to account for the most basic features of reality. However, when he proceeds to contrast its own various theories with those of Scholastic metaphysical research, especially those of the Aristotelian-Thomistic variety, it becomes clear how many advantages the ancient and medieval tradition possesses when it comes to making sense of the universe. Surprisingly, that metaphysical tradition still offers wisdom that bears directly upon many of the most heated philosophical controversies in philosophy today.
Readers interested in stepping beyond physics and exploring what the human mind is capable of doing with the disciplined application of logic and organized thought will enjoy Feser’s book very much. It has four main chapters devoted to four key topics mapping the fundamental structures of reality: potency and act (Chapter 1); causation (Chapter 2); substance and matter (Chapter 3); and essence and existence (Chapter 4).
Feser has a notable flair for being both witty and engaging and for using entertaining and vivid examples. The book demands much from the reader’s intellectual abilities, but like reading St. Thomas Aquinas himself it is always rewarding and exhilarating. Page after page, insight after insight piles up—so many that if you have any philosophical curiosity at all, you simply cannot stop reading. ...
An Interview with Roger B. Thomas, author of "The Accidental Marriage"
An Interview with Roger B. Thomas, author of The Accidental Marriage | IPNovels.com
Roger Thomas is a lifelong Michigan resident, has been married to his wife Ellen since 1981. They have six grown children and eight grandchildren. He is a self-employed computer consultant. He loves reading, and his favorite authors include C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Rudyard Kipling, and P.G. Wodehouse. He has had two collections of short stories published by Ignatius Press, including The Last Ugly Person which was recently featured in a list of 5 More Short Stories That Every Catholic Should Read. Ignatius Press Novels interviewed Roger via email regarding his new novel The Accidental Marriage
.
Where did the idea for this book come from?
Thomas: Oddly, it was a chance line in an online article. It was written by a woman who considers herself a lesbian, and discussed the costs and challenges of getting pregnant. She made an offhand comment that one last resort option is always to just call up a guy friend for an informal “contribution” to facilitate the pregnancy. I pondered that comment, and that it reflected a very shallow understanding of the intricacy and intimacy of what happens when two people join to bring a child into being. I began imagining what kind of complexities might follow such an interaction, and before long the characters of Scott and Megan were coming to life.
Recently, Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco made this appeal to people critical of the Church’s position on same-sex marriage: “Please do not make judgments based on stereotypes, media images and comments taken out of context. Rather, get to know us first as fellow human beings… It is the personal encounter that changes the vision of the other and softens the heart.” During the course of the book, Scott and Megan find that their stereotypes and expectations about others are challenged, both in positive and negative ways. Do you hope your book can help draw out that “encounter” between people with divergent opinions?
Thomas: I certainly hope so. Archbishop Cordileone’s statements cut two ways, as he and other church leaders have made clear. We, especially as Catholics, must not judge on stereotypes and media images, but get to know one another personally.
A drawback of our current cultural dialog, fraught as it is with friction and antagonism, is that was start defining ourselves by our differences. I’m male, she’s female; I’m white, he’s black; I’m a veteran, she’s never served, and so on. This has an isolating effect which you can see expressed in statements like, “You couldn’t possibly understand, because you’re not X”, whatever X might be. Pressed to the extreme, this increasingly isolates us from one another, because nobody is ever going to completely share another’s personal conditions and life experience.
As St. John Paul the Great frequently reminded us, one of the roles of the arts is to reach across those walls and reconnect us with each other in our common humanity. When we read a story or hear a song or see a film and find ourselves saying, “Yes! That’s exactly how it is!”, then we’re connecting with one another. And even as Scott and Megan find their categories getting broadened by their life experiences, I hope the readers of The Accidental Marriage come to see the main protagonists for what they are: simply humans, fellow humans searching for love. Easy as it would be to pigeonhole them as a couple of Bay Area gays living out their mistaken world views, I hope the story brings out their essential humanity in a way that resonates with every reader.
It often seems that the business world of tech startups—the way that there is constant agitation for change and growth without much regard for how that change and growth affects the real people involved—is reflective of a view of relationships that values novelty and change over permanence and depth. Was the setting of the book intentional in this regard?
Thomas: Actually, that was unintentional, but it’s interesting to look back on the story and see that correspondence. There is a disturbing similarity between the interchangeable-persons outlook of the modern corporate world and the similar view of “relationships” – of any type – that is common in our culture. Both reflect a short-term, immediate-return outlook. If this employee (or investment, or partner) isn’t “performing”, then it’s time to change it out.
Love is normally portrayed in romantic fiction as a form of self-fulfillment. Do you think our culture’s emphasis on “romance” helps or hinders love?
August 25, 2014
Why I Love My Invisible Friend
Detail from "Sistine Chapel Ceiling: Creation of the Sun and Moon" (1508) by Michelangelo (www.wikiart.org)
Why I Love My Invisible Friend | Very Rev. Robert Barron | CWR blog
One of the most fundamental mistakes made by atheists is to suppose that God is a supreme being, an impressive item within or alongside the universe
One of the favorite taunts of the New Atheists is that religious people believe in an “invisible friend.”
They are implying, of course, that religion is little more than a pathetic exercise in wishful thinking, a reversion to childish patterns of projection and self-protection. It is well past time, they say, for believers to grow up, leave their cherished fantasies behind, and face the real world. In offering this characterization, the New Atheists are showing themselves to be disciples of the old atheists such as Feuerbach, Marx, Comte, and Freud, all of whom made more or less similar observations.
Well, I'm writing here to let atheists know that I think they’re right, at least about God being an invisible friend. Where they’re wrong is in supposing that surrendering to this unseen reality is de-humanizing or infantilizing.
First, a word about invisibility. It is an extraordinary prejudice of post-Enlightenment Western thought that visible things, empirically verifiable objects and states of affairs, are the most obviously “real” things around. For centuries prior to the Enlightenment, some of the very brightest people that have ever lived thought precisely the opposite. Most famously, Plato felt that the empirical world is evanescent and contingent in the extreme, made up of unstable objects that pass in and out of existence; whereas the invisible world of forms and mathematical truths is permanent, reliable, and supremely beautiful. You can certainly see two apples combining with two oranges to make four things, but when you grasp the principle that two plus two equals four, you have moved out of the empirical realm and into a properly invisible order, which is more pure and absolute than anything that the senses could take in.
Mind you, I’m not denigrating the material world, as Plato and his followers were too often wont to do; I’m simply trying to show that it is by no means obvious that the invisible can simply be equated with the fantastic or the unreal.
Now to God’s invisibility.
Tolkien and Beowulf
Tolkien and Beowulf | Jerry Salyer | Catholic World Report
Tolkien’s newly published translation of the Old English epic beautifully demonstrates that there is more reality in folklore than in the perverse fantasies by which many live today.
At morn King Hrothgar on his throne
for his lieges slain there mourned alone
but Grendel gnawed the flesh and bone
of the thirty thanes of Denmark.
A ship there sailed like a wingéd swan,
and the foam was white on the waters wan,
and one there stood with bright helm on
that fate had brought to Denmark.
— “Beowulf and the Monsters,” J.R.R. Tolkien
Heathen or no, Beowulf does the Lord’s work, and knows full well that there is a higher power to Whom all must answer. So believed the anonymous eighth-century Christian poet who saw fit to set down Beowulf’s adventures; so too believed the late scholar and novelist J.R.R. Tolkien, whose long-awaited translation of the greatest of Old English epics has finally been released.
If Professor Tolkien and the ancient Anglo-Saxon storyteller are right, then Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014) should interest not only philologists and Tolkien fans but the inquisitive Catholic layman, too. Perhaps northern European folklore is more relevant to the Faith than we might think? Perhaps modern Christians can derive wisdom and inspiration from what Tolkien called “point[s] of contact between Scripture and Germanic legend”?
In Tolkien’s view, the first noteworthy “point of contact” is manifested through the Beowulf monsters—particularly the ogre Grendel. By terrorizing the realm of the good King Hrothgar and devouring Hrothgar’s subjects at night, Grendel stands as a representative of Cain, that first killer from whom, in the Beowulf mythos, “all evil broods were born, ogres and goblins and haunting shapes of hell, and the giants too, that long time warred with God.”
What attracts Grendel’s hostility is the music coming from Heorot, as the sound of Hrothgar’s minstrel singing joyfully of Creation rings hatefully in the creature’s ears. This loathing for Christian civilization is extremely important for understanding the poem, for as Tolkien observes in his commentary on the Old English text Grendel is the ultimate féond(enemy), in a permanent state of enmity—fæhÞ—with mankind:
August 23, 2014
The Papacy and Sacred Scripture
The entrance portal of St. Peter's Parish Church in Radovljica. (Photo: Donald Judge from England/Wikimedia Commons)
A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, August 24, 2014 | Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time | Carl E. Olson
Readings:
• Isa 22:19-23
• Psa 138:1-2, 2-3, 6, 8
• Rom 11:33-36
• Matt 16:13-20
“The doctrine of the primacy of Peter is just one more of the many errors that the Church of Rome has added to the Christian religion.”
So wrote the Presbyterian theologian Loraine Boettner in his 1962 book, Roman Catholicism, a popular work of anti-Catholic polemics. Although the religious landscape has changed significantly since the early 1960s, there are still many non-Catholic Christians today who agree wholeheartedly with Boettner’s assertions. The Papacy is unbiblical! It has no basis in Scripture! Peter was never singled out as a leader of the apostles!
Growing up in a Fundamentalist home, I believed such statements. But I now agree instead with the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the ‘rock’ of his Church. He gave him the keys of his Church and instituted him shepherd of the whole flock” (par 881; cf. 551-53). Some of the reasons for the change in my beliefs are found in today’s readings, which provide some Old Testament context for the papacy and also describe a profound exchange between Jesus and Peter.
First, the Old Testament background. King Solomon and his successors had twelve deputies or ministers who helped the king govern and rule (cf., 1 Kings 4:1ff). The master of the palace, or prime minister, had a unique position over those twelve, as described in today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah. The prime minister wore a robe and sash befitting his office, and was entrusted by the king to wield the king’s authority. The symbol for that authority were “the keys of the House of David,” which enabled the minister to regulate the affairs of the king’s household—that is, of the kingdom. In addition, this prime minister is described by Isaiah as a “father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.”
Fast forward to about the year A.D. 30. Jesus and his disciples are in the region of Caesarea Philippi, a pagan area about 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. They likely were standing at the base of Mount Hermon in front of a well-known cliff filled with niches holding statues of pagan deities; at the top of the cliff stood a temple in honor of Caesar. Jesus first asked the disciples who other people thought he was. The variety of answers given revealed the confusion surrounding the identity of Jesus, quite similar to the confusion and controversies about Jesus in our own time.
Jesus asked who they thought he was. It was Peter—brash but correct—who responded with the great acclamation, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, confessing both the divinity and kingship of Jesus. Peter was then addressed singularly by Jesus, who renamed him Petros, or “Rock”. That name was unique among the Jews, reserved in the Old Testament for God alone. Jesus further declared he would build his Church upon the newly named Rock, and he gave Peter “the keys to the kingdom of heaven.”
This dramatic moment makes little or no sense without the context provided by Isaiah 22 and other Old Testament passages. Jesus, heir of David and King of kings, was appointing Peter to be his prime minister, the head of the Twelve. “The ‘power of the keys’,” explains the Catechism, “designates authority to govern the house of God, which is the Church” (par 553). The binding and loosing refers to prohibiting and permitting; it also includes the function of rendering authoritative teaching and making official pronouncements.
Does this mean that Peter and his successors are sinless or even somehow divine? No, of course not. They are men in need of salvation, just like you and I. But God has chosen to work through such men in order to proclaim the Gospel, to lead the Church, and to teach the faithful. They are fathers (“pope” means “papa”) who hold a unique office for one reason: they were called by Christ to hold the keys of the household of God.
(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the August 24, 2008, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)
The Church's Essential and Ultimate Mission
Silhouette of St. Peter's Basilica at sundown (Photo: Dnalor 01/Wikipedia Commons)
The Church's Essential and Ultimate Mission | Carl E. Olson | Catholic World Report editorial
Is the paramount duty of the Church and its faithful to aid those in need?
What is the purpose, the goal, and the essential mission of the Church?
That is the first question I put to a group of catechists earlier this month as we embarked on a week-long course in ecclesiology, part of the Archdiocese of Portland's ministry formation program. It was the central question of the entire course, which was based on the structure and theo-logic of Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.
I also asked my students, “What do most non-Catholics think is the Church's purpose, goal, and essential mission?” They agreed the Church is often perceived and presented as a merely human institution that is either a sort of social club or a political entity. As such, the Church is then praised when it emphasizes messages and concerns aligning with the trending beliefs and inclinations of the dominant culture, or criticized when it fails to be “on the right side of history” and proclaims doctrine deemed “backward” and “out of touch” with expressive individualism—to borrow an apt phrase from philosopher Charles Taylor—and secular ideals.
So, the Church is criticized for being bigoted and intolerant for what she teaches about marriage, homosexuality, family life, and related matters. But she is praised for her concern for the poor and the needy. This combination results in many commentators insisting, in various ways and forms, that the Church really needs to jettison the former and focus solely on the latter. After all, some further state, caring for the poor is thepurpose, goal, and essential mission of the Catholic Church. In fact, this is not so much argued as simply asserted, as if it is a truism known by all except those glowering, gloomy conservative Catholics who obsess over moral behavior and worry about what sins are being committed in bedrooms across the nation.
For example, a recent essay in Fortune magazine, “This pope means business” (Aug. 14, 2014), which praised the managerial skills of Pope Francis, took care to point out that “The church has often promoted issues that tended to divide Catholics more than unite them. And the backlash made Rome look defensive, as many bishops and cardinals viewed their role as defending Catholic doctrines against a hostile culture of secularism.”
August 22, 2014
Secularism, Spirituality, and Witness in a Haunted Age
(Illustration: © intheskies - Fotolia.com)
Secularism, Spirituality, and Witness in a Haunted Age | Carl E. Olson | Catholic World Report
The author of How (Not) to Be Secular, explains why secularism is misunderstood and exclusive humanism is not winning
Dr. James K. A. Smith (website) is professor of philosophy at Calvin College, where he also holds the Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology and Worldview. He has written several books, including works on postmodernism (Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?), worship and liturgy (Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works), and hermeneutics (The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic). He has also written articles for magazines such as the Christian Century, Christianity Today, First Things, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and others.
His most recent book is How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (Eerdmans, 2014). Dr. Smith recently corresponded with Carl E. Olson, editor of Catholic World Report, about the thought of Charles Taylor, what “secularism” is and isn't, the challenge of witnessing in a secular culture, how we live in a haunted age, and why exclusive humanism is not winning.
CWR: How is it that a professor of philosophy at Calvin College ends up writing a short (and fascinating) “field guide”—a commentary, really—about a long (and rather daunting) book by a Catholic philosopher—A Secular Age (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007) by Charles Taylor?
Dr. James K. A. Smith: Well, of course, while Taylor’s work is informed by Catholic intuitions, it’s not parochial. He has garnered wide interest from people of faith and those with none. Furthermore, I would encourage folks to remember that there are Protestants who see themselves as Catholic—not “Roman,” of course, but very much tied to, and indebted to, the Catholic tradition. I’ve described the Protestant Reformation as an “Augustinian renewal movement within the church catholic,” and so see lots of overlapping concern.
I’ve been interested in Taylor precisely because he is a philosopher who has made the transition from narrow disciplinary conversations to a wider, interdisciplinary project. He has also long intrigued me as a Christian scholar who has functioned wisely and winsomely as a public intellectual. So he’s really been an exemplar for me in a lot of ways.
But the more immediate catalyst for turning this into a book was a wonderful teaching experience. A couple of years ago I taught a seminar on A Secular Age, which was an opportunity to walk through this massive tome with 12 serious, curious undergraduates in philosophy. I saw that Taylor’s analysis was really helping them make sense of their own experience—it was existentially illuminating for them. I sensed that a lot of people could benefit from this, but might not be able to wade through a difficult, 900-page book on their own, so I thought I’d write something of a little “companion” volume.
CWR: You state that you are an “unabashed and unapologetic advocate for the importance and originality of Taylor’s project.” In what ways is his book and larger project important and original? What do you hope your book accomplishes, first, as a “stand alone” book and, secondly, as a commentary on Taylor’s monumental volume?
Smith: In both Sources of the Self (1989) and A Secular Age, Taylor undertakes a unique sort of “philosophically inflected history” that helps us understand our present. In doing so, he calls attention to—and is critical of—the often unstated assumptions of “secularist” (i.e., naturalistic) accounts of secularization. So, perhaps paradoxically, Taylor offers an account of secularization that is informed by his religious commitments. But he doesn’t think that makes his analysis parochial or sectarian, because he thinks all accounts are informed by some sort of faith commitments, some “social imaginary.” So he first shows that there are no neutral accounts, and then tries to show why a religious account actually does a better job making sense of the “data” of our contemporary experience.
For example, standard secularization theory has trouble accounting for the continued role of faith in late modern life. It should be gone by now, they expect. But Taylor suggests: maybe religious faith endures because reality includes a transcendence that continues to call and haunt us. If that’s the case, then a “secular” account of secularization has already decided to shut itself off from part of the reality it’s supposed to explain.
I do think How (Not) To Be Secular can be read as a stand-alone book, especially since many won’t have the time or inclination to read a 900-page volume. But I also hope my book can function as a portal of sorts to the more detailed account.
CWR: The first questions you pose, in the Preface, include, “So what do it look like to bear witness in a secular age? What does it look like to be faithful?” Do Christians, by and large, simply assume that they know what “a secular age” and “secularism” are? And if so, are they are usually right or wrong in their definitions and explanations?
August 20, 2014
Finding What Should Never Have Been Lost: Priests and the Extraordinary Form
Bishop Edward J. Slattery of Tulsa, Okla., celebrates a solemn high Mass in the extraordinary form at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington April 24, 2010. It was the first time in 50 years that a Mass was held at the shrine according to the 1962 missal. (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec)
Finding What Should Never Have Been Lost: Priests and the Extraordinary Form | Jim Graves | CWR
Four post-Vatican II priests discuss how they came to know and love celebrating Mass in the Extraordinary Form.
After Pope Paul VI introduced the Novus Ordo Mass in 1969, the older form of the Roman rite—sometimes known as the Tridentine Mass, the Old Mass, the Traditional Latin Mass, and, more recently, the Extraordinary Form—virtually disappeared from many dioceses. Its celebration was severely restricted, if not banned outright, and became a source of controversy.
A yearning among some for the older form of the Mass, coupled with decisions by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, led to its wider use and to a de-stigmatizing of its celebration over the years. The most significant of these decisions was Pope Benedict’s 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which declared that any priest may celebrate the older form of the Mass on his own without special permission from a bishop. Today, attendees of Extraordinary Form Masses are often younger Catholics, as the number of older Catholics who remained devoted to the pre-1969 Mass dwindles.
Catholic World Report spoke to four priests who regularly celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, each of whom has spent most of his life attending, and most of his priesthood celebrating, the Novus Ordo.
“Both forms can coexist”
Father Mark Mazza served for many years as pastor of Star of the Sea Church, near the Golden Gate Bridge in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and as chaplain for the Traditional Latin Mass Society of San Francisco. He recently began a six-month medical leave.
Ordained a priest in 1980, Father Mazza had celebrated the Novus Ordo for more than 30 years when San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone asked him to begin a regular Extraordinary Form Mass at the parish in 2012. He agreed, and spent several months learning its precise rubrics.
From an early age, Father Mazza lamented the end of the celebration of the older form of the Mass in many dioceses after the Second Vatican Council.
Homosexuality and Vocational Discernment and Choice
Homosexuality and Vocational Discernment and Choice | Fr. Paul Anthony McGavin | HPR
A Call for Evidence-Based, Astute Priestly Discernment in a Framework of Overall Moral Character Development
At the request of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in the USA, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York prepared a Report, “Causes and Contexts of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010.” 1 The findings of this study impinge upon the way that bishops, and those involved in priestly formation, interpret and act upon Church documents that address the issue of homosexuality in the context of decisions about the entry of individuals into seminary formation, their progress in seminary formation, and their continued progress to ordination.
The phenomenon of sexual abuse of minors engages both heterosexual and homosexual acts, but has predominantly involved homosexual acts, and these mainly with pubescent youths. The John Jay Report distinguishes homosexual “identity” (associated with homosexual “inclination”) 2 and “behavior” involving homosexual acts. The quantitative and qualitative results of the John Jay study find “identity” to be a weak explanator for sexual abuse of minors. 3 In brief, evidence from the study indicates that the issue of sexual abuse of minors by clergy does not simply focus on the question of sexual inclination—of homosexual inclination.
I am in the fortunate position of being a member of a diocesan presbyterate that has had no cases of civil prosecution during the decades that the issue of clergy sexual abuse has captured so much media attention in Australia, as it has in the USA and elsewhere. Although my observations have not been numerous and not close-at-hand, the generalizations found in the John Jay Report are consistent with such cases as I have noted, and the conclusions that I have drawn. Among the complexity of causes in the sexual abuse of minors, the leading explanation is “whole-life integrity”—or better put, a lack of “whole-life integrity.” In guiding and assessing candidates for the sacred ministry of the Church, it is the human formation in, and manifestation of, manly integrity that has to be at the forefront.
Does this perspective mean that church documents on the issue of homosexuality are sidestepped?
New indie company, Immaculata Pictures, works to resurrect forgotten storytelling
Dustin Kahia and Patrick Coffin, founders of Immaculata Pictures (www.immaculatapictures.com)
New indie company, Immaculata Pictures, works to resurrect forgotten storytelling | CWR Staff | Catholic World Report
Writer/radio host Patrick Coffin and writer Dustin Kahia are in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign to help finance their film, "Call of the Void"
Tired of the non-stop uncreative schlock Hollywood churns out each month? Hungry for movies you can get excited about the way you used to? Able to support a new Kickstarter campaign to make it happen? Read on.
Writer and radio host Patrick Coffin, who pens The Cinephile for Catholic World Report, and his writing partner Dustin Kahia are starting to see a dream come true. Immaculata Pictures was founded this year to reintroduce and recombine classic storytelling with the latest techniques and equipment. CWR sat down recently with the two San Diego-based filmmakers to talk about their company, dream, and the plan to actualize it.
CWR: Patrick, since your name is better known to CWR readers and because of your work in Catholic radio, let’s start with you. Where did the idea for Immaculata Pictures come from?
PC: The name and the legal status as a company really came from Dustin, who had been working for some time to set up a production platform from which to start making movies. I graduated from the well-known Act One: Writing for Hollywood and have worked on a number of writing projects that ended up in what the industry calls Development Hell – the dreaded limbo status of a script that isn’t rejected (and could even be sold) but is not yet filmed or distributed. I also worked at Paulist Productions for the late Father Ellwood Kieser, CSP, as a creative development executive, which gave me a real world sense of how projects go from zero to one. When I met Dustin, not only was the synergy and sympatico there, but so was the timing.
CWR: Dustin, what is your background in the film industry?
DK: I came into filmmaking the tried-and-true way: I interned, first at Morgan Freeman’s Revelations Entertainment and then at Village Roadshow Pictures in Los Angeles. Although no one knew it, I was commuting all the way from San Diego to LA each day. But the training and experience was well worth it. It was a crash course in the entertainment business.
CWR: Did you go to film school?
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