SW News: God works in mysterious ways and “Transformers” star and moviemaker Shia LaBeouf’s life is a case in point. It was the offer to essay the role of noted Italian stigmatist and Capuchin priest St Padre Pio that led the 36-year-old agnostic to reform his reckless life and embrace the Catholic faith. It was in an interview for the program of the “Word of Fire” ministry of Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester in the US that the Hollywood actor disclosed the details of his conversion.

Shia, whose name in Hebrew means “Gift of God”, was born to a non-practicing Jewish mother and a Christian father. He underwent a Bar Mitzvah ceremony for the sake of his maternal grandmother and was also baptized, he said in the interview with Bishop Barron.

The actor, who played Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel series “Even Stevens” was going through a really rough patch when his journey towards conversion began. Shia said his life was “a complete mess” before he came to know about Padre Pio. He had suicidal thoughts and there was also a weapon on his table. He no longer talked to his mother who was divorced. “I came in on fire as I did not want to be an actor anymore. I hurt a lot of people, I felt deep guilt,” he said in the interview.

Padre Pio’s intervention

During those dark days, he was still egotistical and entertained notions of rebuilding his career which was in shambles. It was at that time that he met an Italian Buddhist named Abel Ferrara hailing from Padre Pio’s Pietrelcina in an online spiritual program. “We shared sensibilities and he wrote to me asking if I knew about the saint. This piqued Shia’s interest and he started researching the 20th-century stigmatist. It was then that Ferrara shared the idea of doing a movie on the Franciscan friar and roping in Shia to essay the saint’s role in the movie “Padre Pio”.

“He tells me actor Willem Dafoe is going to be in the movie. My ego tells me I can go from bottom barrel to working with Dafoe,” he said. Ferrara offered him the role on the condition that he research more on Padre Pio’s life by staying in a seminary. For Shia, who resided in Pasadena, the nearest seminary was San Lorenzo where Capuchin friars did their studies for priestly formation. He began living in the parking lot in his car. There began his spiritual journey and his conversion to the Catholic faith. Franciscan brothers Jude and Alex, Fr James as well as Sacred Heart nun Sister Lucia were instrumental in placing him on the road to conversion.

The one-time fan of Ted Talks began reading the Gospel for the first time and he came to encounter the mercy of God and felt the necessity to let go of all unnecessary baggage. Slowly, he felt his ego dissipating and he was able to reconcile with his mother. The actor, who once took pride in challenging the Catholic faith in order to discredit it, now found himself becoming more attached to Catholicism. He also credits Thomas Merton’s “The Seven Storey Mountain”, St Augustine’s “Confessions” and the book on Jim Townsend, the felon who went on to become a Capuchin friar, for helping him on his spiritual journey and finding fulfillment in life.