Hollywood Star Shia LeBeouf dealt with dark times as a young adult, many of which were well documented by the media. Now, however, Shia is opening up about his conversion to Catholicism and the relief that he has received as a consequence.
During an interview on May 23, Shia was interviewed by ChurchPOP English editor Jacqueline Burkepile who asked the actor if there were anything he would like to share about his radical transformation in faith.
Shia said that he hopes to be confirmed into the church by the end of the year and his work in Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, saying: “I’m in RCIA. I’m scheduled to be confirmed in seven months and I hope Bishop Barron comes down to confirm me. But we’ll see. I’m in RCIA right now and once a week I get on the horn with Fr. Bobby and we talk shop.”
The interview with ChurchPOP was conducted so that Shia could promote his upcoming film “Padre Pio,” a film which required him to learn more about the Catholic faith than he ever knew before. He said that much of the film required an immersion into life as a devout Catholic, something that he found comforting compared to his normal lifestyle.
Shia said, “Everybody else in the movie is religious. They are religious. They are in the order. So it’s really easy to get lost and wrapped up in the salvific nature of their lifestyles.”
He also noted that living and working near a real monastery where Padre Pio used to spend his days opened the young actor to the salvation that can be found through the Christian Faith. He said, “We were really protected,” LaBeouf added. “We were filming in and around a monastery. When we weren’t in the monastery, we were at actual locations where Pio lived and studied and practiced his faith. So it was really easy to get totally lost in the whole thing. In so doing, I really found my way.”
Should this change remain for the rest of Shia’s life, it may very well be worthy of its own Hollywood film. A coming-of-age story of an actor who finds his way to God in such a magnificent way would certainly strike a chord with Christian audiences that have finally begun to receive some outstanding feature films like “His Only Son” and “Jesus Revolution.”
Shia also spoke last year with Bishop Robert Barron about the hard times that he had faced in his life and mention the darkest moment when he felt ready to end it all. He is proudly proclaiming that his relationship with God has saved him from those times, but here is what he had to say about them. “I had a gun on the table. I was outta here. I didn’t want to be alive anymore when all of this happened. Shame like I had never experienced before — the kind of shame that you forget how to breathe. You don’t know where to go.”
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