Champions of Faith
If you have not yet seen Champions of Faith: The Baseball Edition, you really must do so. It is a film detailing the witnesses of major league champions like Mike Piazza, David Eckstein, Jeff Suppan, Mike Sweeney, Jack McKeon and Rich Donnelly, and others.
I watched it this weekend and was very much impressed with the quality of the film and the sincerity of the players. It is fast moving, engaging and compelling. It provides the right balance of dramatized action and well chosen theme music with compelling, personal stories of these major league champions. Rich Donnelly’s story was especially moving. It sent chills up my spine. From the website above:
In his late 20s, [Donnelly] fell away from the faith but had a radical conversion experience after the death of his 17-year-old daughter Amy. Her amazing story and prophetic words, “The Chicken Runs at Midnight” became a family motto and came true in 1997 when the Marlins won the World Series at midnight. “The Chicken Runs at Midnight” story is featured in the Champions of Faith: Baseball Edition DVD.
I think that this film can be an effective tool for many reasons. Not the least of which is that sports has become for many men, a replacement for religion. It permits them to allow the ecstatic experience of competitive sports to masquerade for the authentic self-transcendence and the experience of God that they truly seek. Sports provides what they intuit to be a masculine alternative to the human feminine relationship to divinity which they can find uncomfortable, though in an unthematized way. In this well done film, men and boys can see their masculine sports heroes providing a manly witness to the necessity of a sincere commitment to one’s Catholic faith and to the love of God.
This is a perfect tool, it seems to me, to begin to draw men into a thirst to learn about the faith. Coupled with a well thought out catechetical/faith formation program, this pre-evangelization tool should be a part of every parishes arsenal. You can go to the website to see the trailer to get an idea of the quality. It really is a must see!
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Sounds good!
Comment by Mrs Jackie Parkes — June 19, 2007 @ 8:26 am
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God bless
Comment by Mrs Jackie Parkes — June 19, 2007 @ 8:28 am
The only problem is that if you want to show it to a group of catechism students, or your parish, or youth program in general, you are supposed to obtain a “license” for multiple viewers. You can’t just by the DVD and show it to a group.
This is very discouraging that a product like this would be made, and then because MLB footage is used, you would have to jump through a hoop to do it the right way.
Just had to get that off my chest. BTW, if you like Catholic Videos, I started a new vlog called Catholic Tube. Check it out at http://www.catholic-tube.com.
In Christ,
Travis
Comment by Travis — June 28, 2007 @ 2:26 pm
>> The only problem is that if you want to show it to a group of catechism students, or your parish, or youth program in general, you are supposed to obtain a “license” for multiple viewers. You can’t just by the DVD and show it to a group.
Travis - thanks for pointing that out. I had missed that and I agree with you. I can see that this should be the case of for-profit ventures but it seems to me that MLB is being overly restrictive with this. Having seen this, I wonder about the utility of such a product.
Comment by David — June 28, 2007 @ 3:02 pm
I’m guessing it’s probably just the general license required for any MLB footage shown in something sold. I would think that the reason the MLB footage was used was for more appeal to youth and men. Watching a video of Mike Piazza or Jeff Supan talk is one thing, but I guess the impact is greater when you see someone whack a home run over a fence and then turn around and something along the lines of “Without God, a homerun would be meaningless”.
I was going to buy the DVD to use in catechesis and youth ministry, but that “contact us about showing to large groups” really turned me off.
In Christ,
Travis
P.S. Thanks for the post about Catholic Tube
Comment by Travis — June 28, 2007 @ 4:51 pm