Building a Bridge Between Catholic Church and LGBTQ+ Community
Building a Bridge, available Tuesday via video on demand, follows Father James Martin as he spreads the word that there’s a place for LGBTQ+ people in the church — and that the church needs to be more loving and welcoming toward them.
Martin has been offering that message for years, including in a book of the same name, published in 2017, but he and co-directors Evan Mascagni and Shannon Post expect that the film will reach an even wider audience.The idea of making a film about Martin originated with Mascagni, who was brought up Catholic in Kentucky but stopped practicing the faith when he went to college.
His mother, still a devout Catholic, sent him some information on Martin, and Mascagni was impressed.Martin’s way of thinking “was very different from the Catholic Church I experienced growing up in Kentucky,” Mascagni says.
The filmmaker, a straight ally to the LGBTQ+ community, then contacted Post, a queer woman, about the possibility of making a movie on Martin.Post had wanted to make a film relating to the 2016 mass shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, which had a mostly LGBTQ+ clientele.
