CNN’s ‘Finding Jesus’ Co-Author on Messiah, Not Myth

Last updated on: March 7, 2015 at 9:19 pm By Kate O'Hare

While not every Christian historical artifact examined in the ongoing CNN series “Finding Jesus,” airing Sundays, is the real thing, author and Catholic convert David Gibson has no doubt about the Faith’s central figure. Gibson co-wrote the book that inspired the series, “Finding Jesus: Faith. Fact. Forgery,” with Michael McKinley. In conversation on Thursday, he described his mother as “a Billy Graham Evangelical,” and said, “As my mom says, ‘You can only find Jesus in the Bible.’ I say, ‘Yeah, Mom,... Read more

Catholic Ed Burns on the ‘Twelve Best Days’

Last updated on: March 7, 2015 at 7:31 pm By Kate O'Hare

From Saturday’s (March 7) The Hollywood Reporter, Ed Burns, born into a large Irish-Catholic family in Queens, N.Y. — and married to fellow Catholic and model Christy Turlington — talks about his life and career in the “Off the Cuff” podcast: And thus a star was born. In his book, which Burns hopes will “create a roadmap for kids who are in film school or coming out of film school,” he chronicles in painstaking detail how, as a working class Irish-American... Read more

Netflix Talking to Alfonso Arau About Spanish-Conquest Miniseries

Last updated on: March 7, 2015 at 7:14 pm By Kate O'Hare

From Saturday’s Hollywood Reporter: Alfonso Arau (Like Water for Chocolate) is in talks with Netflix to develop The Conquest of the Sun, a miniseries about how Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortez defeated the Aztec empire. The Conquest of the Sun will consist of three, two-hour episodes written in English, Spanish and Nahuatl. Arau said an important Hollywood screenwriter is attached, but he declined to provide the writer’s name. Since Spanish exploration in the New World was also connected to the conversion to Catholicism of indigenous peoples,... Read more

5 for Friday: Lenten Love in a Soup Pot

Last updated on: March 6, 2015 at 2:35 pm By Kate O'Hare

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting. … Abraham Maslow On Lenten Fridays, there might be a fish fry, but there also might be Stations of the Cross, with a meatless soup-and-sandwich dinner afterward. Of my major food groups — including, but not limited to, meat, cheese, butternut squash and chocolate — soup ranks highly. It’s delicious, satisfying, easy to eat and comforting, requiring only basic culinary skills but an enormous amount of, as Maslow notes, true... Read more

The ‘Very, Very Good’ Preacher Man of Fox’s ‘Backstrom’

Last updated on: March 5, 2015 at 5:42 pm By Kate O'Hare

You can take the boy out of the Church, but it’s hard to take the Church out of the boy. Hart Hanson, executive producer of Fox’s long-running “Bones” — which features a Catholic lead character, FBI Agent Seeley Booth, played by David Boreanaz — is also the executive producer and showrunner of the new Fox comedy-drama “Backstrom,” airing Thursdays. Hanson, born in America and raised in Canada, was educated by Jesuits. When I reminded him of that during at a... Read more

‘Jane the Virgin’ Candles: Cute Tchotchkes or Sacrilege?

Last updated on: March 3, 2015 at 1:59 pm By Kate O'Hare

Celebrity prayer candles are a thing. Earlier today, Patheos‘ own Deacon Greg Kandra posted a link on Facebook to an Etsy site selling parodies of prayer candles featuring Catholic-themed pictures of “The Golden Girls.” But it’s not just these four ladies. Apparently all kinds of celebrities get their faces plastered on prayer candles, complete with saintly robes, Sacred Hearts and all the rest — Saint RuPaul is especially charming — and obviously Catholics are expected to take it all in good... Read more

‘Finding Jesus’: Notre Dame’s Dr. Candida Moss on the CNN Series About Faith and History

Last updated on: February 28, 2015 at 3:58 pm By Kate O'Hare

On Sunday, March 1, CNN launches a six-part series based on the St. Martin’s Press book “Finding Jesus: Faith. Fact. Forgery,” by David Gibson and Michael McKinley. Both the book and the series, also called “Finding Jesus,” explore the Gospels and the reality of Christ by examining six artifacts through history, anthropology, archaeology and scientific experimentation (gee, wouldn’t it be nice sometime if CNN gave Islam the same scrutiny by looking at relics of Mohammed? One can dream.) The episodes... Read more

‘Duck Dynasty’ Patriarch Phil Robertson Delivers a Fiery Sermon at CPAC

Last updated on: February 27, 2015 at 9:33 pm By Kate O'Hare

If the attendees at CPAC — Conservative Action Political Conference — didn’t have the Holy Spirit before, they may have it now. Going on right now at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, at National Harbor, Maryland, not far from Washington, D.C., the annual meeting sponsored by the American Conservative Union is spotlighting conservative political activists, GOP lawmakers and especially potential presidential contenders. Representing none of these on Friday, Feb. 27, was “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson, who was on hand to... Read more

Leonard Nimoy Has Departed for the Undiscovered Country

Last updated on: February 27, 2015 at 10:59 am By Kate O'Hare

“Death, that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns …” Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” Act 3, Scene 1. “Star Trek VI : The Undiscovered Country” was one of the good “Star Trek” movie sequels (it’s a rule of thumb that you should stick only with the ones that are even-numbered and/or involved writer/director Nicholas Meyer). Reportedly it was based on a suggestion from Leonard Nimoy, a k a Mr. Spock, on what would happen if the “Wall came down” in the... Read more

Who predicted Jesus' betrayal price?