Professor of Fine Arts Richard A. Blake, SJ, co-director of the Film Studies Program.
Year for Priests: Q&A with Professor of Fine Arts Richard A. Blake, SJ
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In observance of the "Year for Priests" proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI for 2009-10, Chronicle presents a series of conversations with members of Boston College's religious community about the experiences, challenges and joys of their vocations. This issue: Professor of Fine Arts Richard A. Blake, SJ, co-director of the Film Studies Program.How and when did you hear the "call" to become a priest?
I know this sounds like a wise-guy answer, but it's not. I knew I wanted to be a priest maybe four or five years after I was ordained. It takes a while to figure out what it is and how you fit into it. It's the experience that makes a difference. It's like a couple marching down the aisle with rice in their hair. They really don't know what married life is about, but after a while they can say, 'I really do want to be married to this person for the rest of my life'.
What were the early experiences in your life that drew you to the priesthood?
I came from a huge, mainly Irish Catholic parish in Brooklyn. I respected the parish priests very much, I was an altar boy and involved in parish activities. But I never felt that strong a desire to be a diocesan priest. But at Brooklyn Prep, with the Jesuit staff that they had there, I said, "This is something I'd like to be part of." They had many scholastics - Jesuits who are not ordained, but teaching - and they provided a model for something to pursue after high school.
What is it about being a priest that brings you your greatest joy?
Every once in a while, I'll write something or say something that seems to have an impact on someone's life. There is a fulfillment there. I do lead a bookish existence, in that I'm not primarily out in the trenches with social work or sacramental ministries. To be able to write, or edit or solicit writings from other people that make a difference in continuing the work of the gospel is a very fulfilling part of my life.
Was there ever a trying time for you as a priest and how were you able to get through it?
I guess the toughest time was the mid-life career transition. I finished off a doctorate and went directly to America magazine and was an editor for 14 years and for eight of those years I was executive editor in charge of the weekly. It started to get me down. I'd done that too long. It was clear it was time to move on. So I dusted off my PhD and went back into academia.
You can imagine the transition in the academic world between 1971 and 1985. I was out of contact with students. I was out of contact with the literature of the field. I hadn't developed teaching skills at that point. So here I was in my mid-40s trying to pick up the pieces and start a new career. It took a long time to get back. Georgetown gave me a chance to ease back into the classroom with a two-year appointment as visiting professor. I was grateful to the people at Georgetown and later at Le Moyne College to be able to work back into a respectable academic life.
As a specialist in film studies who wrote reviews for 35 years in America magazine, what fueled your interest in the movies?
My father was in the movie business as a theater inspector. He used to keep the payrolls honest. Part of that involved running around buying tickets and then checking the numbers against the number of people he'd counted coming in to make sure there was no funny business going on with the ticket sales. At 8 or 9, I started going around with him as an excuse to buy children's tickets. So I saw fragments of the great movies of the 1940s and 1950s.
As a priest, how do you approach film criticism?
I approach film criticism as a film scholar, rather than as a priest. A lot of [film criticism] by religious figures has been compromised by a catechetical approach. They are looking specifically for God imagery, moral lessons, parallels to the gospel and so on. That really compromises the much wider question of how God speaks to us through the arts, how artistic expression is ennobling of the human person and how does the honesty of a filmmaker, like any other artist, really reveal God's work among his people?
What advice would you give to a young man considering the priesthood?
Young people have so many options today that having the idea of becoming a priest is a great and rare gift in itself. I'd tell them to act on their gut feelings. Make contact with someone they can talk to about their aspirations. There's no need to rush into a decision, but it would be a tragedy to let the moment pass without taking the inspiration seriously. People have a lot of false information and preconceptions about priests. Talking to someone who knows the life from experience can inject a healthy dose of reality.
To read our other installments of the "Year for Priests" Series, visit http://bit.ly/9v0Iza for a Q&A with Director of Campus Ministry Fr. Tony Penna and http://bit.ly/a9RyOK to read a Q&A with Center for Ignatian Spirituality Director Michael Boughton, SJ.