Jesuit wants films at Mass

July 3, 2012 in News

Pat Connolly SJ is the Associate Professor of Film and Television at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He speaks of film as the historic development of ‘a third language’, speech and written text being the other two. And he firmly believes that film should be part of our liturgies, particularly the mass.

Obviously of Irish descent, on a recent trip to visit family and Jesuit friends in Dublin he spoke to Pat Coyle of the Jesuit Communication Centre about his love of the language through symobls that is film, and gave examples of films he has made and how they have been used in liturgies in certain Churches in the US. He calls his short religious themed films ‘animated stain glass windows’

He also spoke of the importance of symbols in liturgy and in film as a means of evoking their multiple meanings in the memory and heart of those who see them. Listen here to his interview.