‘Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints’: Patrick Leads Off S2

On Sunday, Nov. 16, Season 2 of streamer Fox Nation’s docudrama series Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints launches with the story of St. Patrick, filmed in Ireland.

Seven more saints follow, from the time of Christ to one of the most recent.

Eight Saints, Four at a Time

As with Season 1, the episodes air in two sections, with four between Nov. 16 and Dec. 7, and four more in the spring, leading up to Holy Week.

Legendary director — and lifelong Catholic — Scorsese developed the series with creator Matti Leshem. Scorsese is also an executive producer, along with being host and narrator, and guiding post-episode discussions.

After Patrick is Peter (Nov. 23), Thomas Becket (Nov. 30,), and on Dec. 7, one of the Church’s newest saints. Carlo Acutis (episode directed by Scorsese’s daughter Francesca).

The dates of the remaining episode haven’t been announced yet, but they include Lucia (Lucy), Longinus, Paul and the Virgin Mary.

In an interview conducted for the press kit, Scorsese said:

None of them were born as saints. They didn’t glow, and they didn’t have halos, and they’re basically human beings just like us. And in the course of living their lives, something happened. They were sort of chosen.

And in some cases, as it was with Mary and Paul, they were visited and they were confronted with a mystery, a great mystery. And, in effect, they had become vessels or messengers. And everything in their lives just changed in that instant.

Peter and Longinus found themselves face-to-face with a true revelation, a door that opened. Their doubts caused them to hesitate, and then they walked into new lives of the spirit.

Saint Patrick came to his faith one step at a time. Lucia, or Saint Lucy, she chose the way of God and martyrdom. So did Thomas Becket.

As for Carlo Acutis, as our newest saint and one of the youngest, his short life was really grounded in absolute faith and set an example for millions of young Catholics around the world.

Take a look:

Don’t miss a thing! Subscribe to my content at Authory.com/KateOHare.

Separating Truth From Myth With St. Patrick

St. Patrick was Catholic, but he wasn’t Irish. But this noble-born Roman Briton fell so in love with the people who captured him into slavery that he made it his life’s work to bring Christianity to the Emerald Isle.

Season 1 of The Saints included Francis of Assisi, a saint that most people have heard of — at least as a bird-feeder statue standing in the backyard. The facts of his life are fascinating, but over the centuries, they’ve become buried under layers of legend and piety.

The situation of St. Patrick is similar. His Catholic feast day has become a secular celebration of Irish heritage (as he’s the island’s patron) … and lots of green beer. But Leshem aims to expose the truth behind the folklore.

I had a recent conversation with Leshem, who attracted a lot of attention in season one for being a Jewish filmmaker, educated in a Catholic elementary school in Copenhagen, who created a series about Catholic saints.

Says Leshem:

I think that the real point is that for me personally, I’ve always been inspired by Christianity, inspired by Catholic saints. I’ve always been aware from a very early age of the story of Jesus.

And to me, I think of Christianity as kind of Judaism 2.0. And that’s how I see it, on a continuum.

And I’m proudly Jewish, but I have great love and great respect for all my Christian friends.

Leshem directed the episodes about Patrick and Mary, and the Roman centurion Longinus (more of that at the end of the post).

Of the St. Patrick episode, Leshem says:

I was shooting in Ireland, and I was surprised by how little people actually know about Patrick. There’s so much legend around him.

And we were really trying to tell the story in the most humanistic way possible. And obviously, there is a lot of material on Patrick with the Confessio [which he wrote]. So for us, it was just a beautiful journey of exploration.

One idea that’s become popular today is that somehow Catholicism was imposed upon the pagan Irish by coercion or force. That’s absolutely not true.

After escaping from his Irish captors and returning to Britain, Patrick continued his education there and in France and Italy, becoming a priest and, later, a bishop. He returned to Ireland and began preaching and teaching.

He made converts by persuasion and argument, not by force — as he had no army, only the Gospel. The conversion of Ireland was bloodless .. and that included Patrick.

Says Leshem:

It’s true. I mean, and also it’s one of the rare saints who isn’t martyred, which I think is also kind of a beautiful way to look at his story.

Bringing Patrick Back to Ireland

The Saints has shot in Serbia and Italy — with Scorsese’s sections done in New York City — but the St. Patrick episode needed to be where the saint walked.

Says Leshem:

This year we shot six of the episodes in Italy, and we found incredible locations, it was beautiful. And one episode in Ireland, because Patrick had to be shot in Ireland, because it’s so beautiful and so much the story of Ireland.

We were out there on location for months. I left LA, which is my home as well, in April, and I still haven’t been back, but I’m really looking forward to get back.

Peter vs. Peter

I joked with Leshem that his St. Peter episode has competition, since Shahar Isaac has made an impact in the role of Simon Peter in the hit series inspired by the Gospels, The Chosen (I just did an interview with Giavani Cairo, who plays the Apostle Thaddeus, a k a Jude)

Leshem says:

I’ve never actually seen [Isaac], but I don’t really think of The Chosen as competition. I think they do their thing, and I think they do it well.

Our stories are different. Our format is really different. I think they’re in a very populist kind of mass version of that story. And I think it’s really successful for what it is.

I think our stories are different and we tell them differently. But the great news is I think there could be 10 versions of Peter.

Asked if it’s young Peter or old Peter, Leshem says:

You see Peter when he first meets Jesus, and then you see Peter after the Crucifixion.

Bringing a Roman Convert Back to Life

The episode on St. Longinus, which comes in the second batch, may come as a revelation to some people, since he hasn’t been talked about much in recent years.

From Catholic.org:

St. Longinus is the centurion who pierced the side of Our Lord while He was hanging on the Cross. St. Longinus, who was nearly blind, was healed when some of the blood and water from Jesus fell into his eyes. It was then he exclaimed “Indeed, this was the Son of God!” [Mark 15:39]

Longinus has a special fascination for Leshem, who says:

He’s the one that impacted me the most. I think it’s an incredible story. I think we’ve done a really good job of telling it. It’s also a very little-known story, because he’s got four lines in the Gospel.

Then there’s, of course, a lot of medieval stuff and legends about him, but we really tried to put together something very powerful. I’m very excited for you to see it when the time comes.

He’s the one that I feel closest to, and it was a very personal story for me to direct.

Here’s a peek at St. Patrick: