Actor Shia LaBeouf, known as much for his off-screen problems as for his film roles, has converted to Catholicism after being confirmed on New Year’s Eve at a mass presided over by Capuchin Franciscan friars.
The Capuchin Franciscan Province of Western America announced the news on its Facebook site, where it posted images of a smiling LeBeouf receiving Communion, kneeling with his eyes closed in prayer during Mass and hugging friars who attended the ceremony.
The sacramental ceremony took place at Old Mission St. Agnes Parish in Solvang, California, the same convent where LaBeouf, who acknowledged his alcoholism and faced accusations of abuse, trained for months for his role as one of the best-known saints and venerated of Italy in the 2022 Film, “Padre Pio.”
“The Capuchin Franciscan friars are delighted to welcome him to the fold and witness his deep commitment to his journey of faith,” the Catholic religious order said.
LaBeouf “has embarked on a profound spiritual journey that has led him to embrace the teachings of the Catholic Church,” the order says. “His decision to fully enter the Church is a testament to his sincere desire to grow in his relationship with God and live the values ??of the Gospel.”
LaBeouf first rose to fame as a teenager on the Disney Channel show “Even Stevens” and is best known for his roles in 2007’s “Transformers” and 2008’s “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.” the 2019 film “The Peanut Butter Falcon.”
He has had several run-ins with the law during his career, including an arrest in New York City in 2017 for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct that was captured on livestreamed video. He was sent to rehab by court order.
LaBeouf, accused of abuse by an ex-girlfriend, spent months at the California convent preparing for his role in “Padre Pio.”
The actor has said that the opportunity to play the mystical Capuchin monk best known for having displayed the “stigmata” wounds of Christ (he bled from his hands, feet and sides) was a miracle for him personally.
LaBeouf said last year in an interview with Bishop Robert Barron of the Winona-Rochester diocese in Minnesota that he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism. He said that he had a bar mitzvah when he was 13, but that he never embraced the Jewish faith.
Barron, in an email to The Associated Press on Friday, described LaBeouf’s conversion as “a testimony of God’s grace.”
“God seems to specialize in finding the lost,” Barron wrote. “Jesus himself said, ‘I have not come for the righteous but for sinners.’ Therefore, forgiveness is always available; redemption is always possible.”
The sponsor of LaBeouf’s confirmation, Capuchin friar Alexander Rodriguez, told the AP that LaBeouf “would not have become Catholic if he had not gone through the difficulties and personal sins that we know about.”
“Thanks to the sufferings he has gone through, he was able to come to know God, especially by playing the role of Padre Pio,” the friar said in a telephone interview.
Padre Pio died in 1968 and was canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II, becoming one of the most popular saints in Italy, the United States and beyond.
The Capuchin Friars Minor are a Catholic religious order of men inspired by Saint Francis of Assisi. On their site they say that their life mission is to serve the poor and live the Gospel “through fraternity, simplicity and contemplative prayer.”
