Beyond the books

Listen, watch and history

Not everyone learns best from a page. Here are podcasts, lectures, audiobooks, videos and films worth your time, and the histories that explain how each question came to be asked. Each names the questions it helps with.

To watch

Documentaries, video courses and films that carry an argument.

Film A Hidden Life

Terrence Malick, 2019 · about 2 h 55 min · Bl. Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer, refuses the oath to Hitler against the advice of nearly everyone.

Journal

Helps with: What is conscience?; May a Christian take up the sword?; Where does authority come from?
Film A Man for All Seasons

Fred Zinnemann, 1966 · about 2 h · St. Thomas More refuses to swear to the King's supremacy over the Church, and keeps his conscience to the scaffold.

Journal

Helps with: What is conscience?; Church and state; The office of Peter
Film Becket

Peter Glenville, 1964 · about 2 h 30 min · Thomas Becket, the King's friend made Archbishop, takes the Church's side against Henry II.

Journal

Helps with: Church and state
Film Of Gods and Men

Xavier Beauvois, 2010 · about 2 h · The Trappist monks of Tibhirine, living among their Muslim neighbors, decide whether to stay as civil war closes in.

Journal

Helps with: What is suffering for?; May a Christian take up the sword?; Who can be saved?
Film The Mission

Roland Joffé, 1986 · about 2 h 5 min · Jesuit missions among the Guaraní are given up to the colonial powers; two priests choose between prayer and arms.

Journal

Helps with: Should the faith take the forms of each culture it enters?; May a Christian take up the sword?; Church and state