Avoiding Babylon From Mass Of The Ages To Movie Crusade: Reclaiming Culture Through Film
What if the stories we stream every night are shaping our souls more than any sermon we hear on Sunday? That’s the heartbeat of this candid conversation with Mass of the Ages director Cameron O’Hearn—a filmmaker who pulled a hit film at 1.6 million views on principle, re-edited through crisis, and kept his eye fixed on devotion over dopamine.
We trace the arc from the trilogy’s explosive reception to the quiet wins that don’t trend: a free priest-training platform walking hundreds of Novus Ordo priests (and even a few bishops) through the traditional Latin low Mass step by step. Cameron opens up about the cost behind the craft—lost footage, hard edits, and choosing integrity mid-production—and why part three refused to offer a “silver bullet” in a Church moment defined by tension and testing.
Then we widen the lens. Movie Crusade was born from rediscovering Pius XI and Pius XII on cinema, and their bold claim that images form the moral personality. We unpack a simple but sharp framework—good, dangerous, harmful—for evaluating films, and revisit the power of the old Hayes Code when seven million Catholics once moved Hollywood. Expect frank takes on Silence, The Passion of the Christ, and The Chosen; how on-screen portrayals of Jesus can aid or distort prayer; and why icons’ strangeness protects mystery. This isn’t culture war for its own sake—it’s a call to choose stories that teach us to love the good.
We close with a look at Discover Tradition, a brisk, story-driven travel series exploring living Catholic customs, and a sustainable model that gets more beautiful work finished and seen. If you care about the Latin Mass, moral imagination, and giving your family better art, this conversation is a roadmap and a rallying cry. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves movies, and leave a review to help more people find the show.
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