Letter #11, 2025, Tuesday, January 28: Top Ten 2024 #3
I met Eduardo Verastegui in Rome some years ago, and we passed some time together in and around St. Peter’s Square, talking about the faith and about the history of the Church.
As the years passed by, I have been impressed by Verastegui’s integrity and courage in living the Catholic faith in the difficult world of Hollywood film-making.
He has touched many lives with his work, and inspired many with the coherence of his thought and life. For these reasons, we decided to choose him as one of our “Top Ten” people of 2024. —RM
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With the aid, and in the hope, of Christ, believers can
overcome any difficulties…
Here are the testimonies of 10 of His people
Top Ten 2024
It was a difficult year. Around the world there were wars and rumors of wars; brutally contentious elections; assassinations and assassination attempts; deadly storms, earthquakes and mudslides. Conflicts within the Church — excommunications, criminal trials, continuing abuse allegations and the tug-of-war between modernism and tradition — were sometimes just as painful.
Yet the Church is — in a way the world is not — consecrated and filled with grace by her divine Spouse, the Lord Jesus, who ever and always “makes all things new.”
The grace and peace of Christ is available to all Christians of good will, and in 2024, as in every year, it was the antidote to the sickness of our modern age, and the leavening of our lives otherwise weighed down by the consequences of sin.
Jesus did indeed, in 2024, somehow renew us and bring us joy and strength, and one way He accomplished this was through the lives and testimonies of His people. We have chosen 10 of them for your reflection here.
Eduardo Verastegui: “God is the fire”
“I did not wish to continue singing silly songs”
In March of 2024, a movie about a Catholic saint debuted in theaters across the United States, garnering a 90% positive critical rating — and an amazing 98% viewer rating — on the popular website Rotten Tomatoes.
The film was “Cabrini”; one of the two executive producers of the film was the Mexican actor and one-time Mexican presidential hopeful Eduardo Verástegui.
“Cabrini” was just the latest, but perhaps most explicitly Catholic, cinematic effort of Verástegui, whose production company, Metanoia Films, also produced the 2023 blockbuster film about human trafficking, “The Sound of Freedom.”
Shortly after the March 8 debut of “Cabrini,” Verástegui told the National Catholic Register: “My hope is that when parents take their daughters to see this film, they will imitate the saint’s life rather than a secular model. The modern feminist movement doesn’t want girls and women to see Cabrini because the film shows a woman truly empowered by God…
“God our Father wants us to cooperate with him. But when women or men take God out of their lives, whatever they touch is destroyed because they aren’t living in the plenitude of truth and God’s love.
“Cabrini shows what the saint did when God guided her to found orphanages, hospitals and schools…She incarnated the acts of mercy and is more alive today than ever because she is now a saint,” he said.
In fact, the one-time pop band singer and soap opera star says that he promised God and his family that “I will only use my talents to do projects that will have the potential to make this world a better place.”
After finding success in Mexico’s entertainment industry 25 years ago, Verástegui, now 50, came to Hollywood, where he received roles in several American films. It was then that, seeking to improve his American accent, he met a pronunciation coach in 2002 who happened to be a devout Catholic.
Verástegui questioned this coach about the Catholic faith, in which the actor himself had been raised but had largely cast off. Spurred to learn more, Verastegui eventually re-discovered his faith and vowed to pursue only projects in tune with his Catholic beliefs and sensibilities.
This vow led to his involvement, both as producer and cast member, in the 2006 pro-life film “Bella”; in the 2012 film on the Cristeros movement in Mexico, “For Greater Glory,”; and in the Hiroshima-bomb-themed “Little Boy.”
In an interview, he challenged the common accusation that pro-life people like him only care about babies before birth.
“Being pro-life means to take care of those kids who are living in the streets, being pro-life means to take care of those children who are victims of sexual exploitation, being pro-life means to take care of those teenagers who are suffering from addiction, being pro-life means to take care of those who are falsely accused and they’re in prison,” he said.
After 25+ years in the entertainment business, in 2024 Verástegui threw his hat into a different ring: politics.
Already known as a supporter of president-elect Donald Trump (Verástegui gave Trump a large banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe in October), he declared his intention to run for President in Mexico’s June 2024 election.
“I have to let go of everything I fought for [for] 20 years, even though it’s my passion to make movies, in order to give life to my country,” he said.
“If they give me the opportunity to be president of Mexico, I will not allow the entire LGBT+ alphabet to continue contaminating our nation. I don’t want Mexican children sexualized and indoctrinated in schools with books that promote gender ideology,” the Mexican actor wrote.
Unfortunately, due in part to government technical difficulties, Verástegui was not able to register enough signatures to appear on the ballot.
But Verástegui continues to work for the rights of the unborn, including appearing at an October pro-life rally at Florida’s Ave Maria University, where he told the student crowd, “No matter how on fire you are, if you step out of the community, prayer, Mass … little by little you extinguish.”
Verástegui concluded, “It’s very important to be on fire. But that fire doesn’t come from us.
“God is the fire.”
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