New year, New Shia LaBeouf.
The “Transformers” star, whose acting career has been tainted for years by alcoholism, abuse allegations and arrests, , was officially confirmed into the Catholic Church on New Year’s Eve. Now, he’s reportedly eyeing the diaconate.
The Capuchin Franciscans-Western American Province announced LeBeouf’s confirmation this week in a Facebook post , adding photos of a smiling LeBeouf receiving Communion and kneeling in prayer.
“We are thrilled to share that our dear friend Shia LaBeouf has fully entered the Church this past weekend through the sacrament of confirmation,” the post read. “The Capuchin Franciscan friars are overjoyed to welcome him into the fold and witness his deep commitment to his faith journey.”
The ceremony took place at Old Mission Santa Inés Parish in Solvang, the same Capuchin parish where LaBeouf trained for months for his role as Franciscan friar Francesco Forgione in Abel Ferrara’s 2022 film “Padre Pio.”
It was this role that made LaBeouf a religious devotee, he told Bishop Robert Barron in an August 2022 video interview. He was raised by a Catholic father and a Jewish mother and was both baptized and had a bar mitzvah, but “it felt fake because I never invested,” he told Barron.
“I had never felt any real suffering in my life, so I didn’t have any willingness to have any belief, so I had no faith.”
But after LaBeouf’s ex-girlfriend Tahliah Barnett, who goes by the stage name FKA twigs, filed a lawsuit against him in 2020, accusing him of repeated physical and sexual assault during an abusive, yearlong relationship, the actor said he felt “shame like I had never experienced before, the kind of shame that you forget how to breathe.”
“My life was on fire … I had a yearning to not be here anymore,” LaBeouf said. Then he met Ferrara, the filmmaker.
The lawsuit pushed LaBeouf to pause his acting career and focus solely on his recovery, which landed him in the same spiritual program as Ferrara. After hearing LaBeouf’s story in one of the group’s Zoom meetings, Ferrara asked LeBeouf if he’d heard of Padre Pio. A few meetings later, Ferrara asked LaBeouf to play Pio in a film and encouraged him to immerse himself in a seminary to train for the part.
LaBeouf immediately drove his pickup to San Lorenzo Seminary in Santa Ynez and began living in the parking lot. There, studying the Gospels for the role that he thought would resurrect his career morphed into his Catholic conversion.
“It stops being this like prep of a movie and it starts feeling like something that feels beyond all that,” LaBeouf told Barron. “I was holding on so tight to a life that was slipping away through my hands … the Gospel gave me this invite to just let go.”
LaBeouf’s confirmation sponsor, Capuchin friar Brother Alexander Rodriguez, told the Catholic News Agency that “Padre Pio” also inspired him to become a deacon — a minister of sacrament who baptizes, leads prayers, witnesses marriages and conducts wake and funeral services, according to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“He just spontaneously said, ‘I want to become a deacon,’ and he still feels that way,” Rodriguez said.
LaBeouf‘s management did not respond immediately Friday to The Times’ request for comment about the actor’s alleged intentions to pursue the diaconate.
In 2022, LaBeouf disputed director Olivia Wilde’s claims that she had fired him from her film “Don’t Worry Darling,” countering her story with texts and emails to the contrary. In one such email, he characterized Wilde’s quotes about him as “attractive clickbait, as I am still persona-non-grata and may remain as such for the rest of my life.”
But in their post celebrating LaBeouf’s confirmation, the Capuchin Franciscans reflected on the “transformative power of faith and the incredible impact it can have on one’s life.”
“May his example inspire others to explore their own spiritual paths and find solace in the loving embrace of the Church,” they wrote.
