Film Dilogy about Faith, Suffering, and Illness. Media Images of Catholic Priests Based on the Films Father Stu and Johnny

The aim of the article is the issue of the media image of two priests, created for the needs of popular culture in biographical feature films. The first of them is the American priest Stuart Ignatius Long, portrayed in the film Father Stu. The second is the Polish priest Jan Kaczkowski, shown in the film Johnny. The films, due to the fact that they present people called to the priesthood, priests of the Catholic Church who devote themselves to religious activities, meet the criteria of religious cinema. The research issue was to determine whether the film productions about the mentioned priests are film hagiographies of clergy, confessional religious cinema or only loosely refer to the true biographies of priests. Priests, who struggled with their own handicap and illness for most of their lives, which they never hid from their faithful, did not hinder their pastoral ministry.