A docudrama about the Sacred Heart of Jesus, directed by Steven Gunnell, is surprisingly successful at the French box office. The film faced criticism and attempts to suppress its release from some French cultural figures. Efforts to prevent the film's advertising, including a refusal by state-owned railway companies, failed to deter the public. The movie explores the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through apparitions in Paray-le-Monial.
20 days ago
The docudrama Sacré-Cœur: son règne n’a pas de fin (Sacred Heart: His Reign Is Endless) has emerged as a major cinematic hit in France.1 Released on October 1, 2025, it has sold nearly 500,000 tickets, achieving record attendance per screening and surpassing expectations in a secular society.1
Directed and produced by Steven Gunnell and his wife Sabrina, the 92-minute film recounts Christ's 17th-century apparitions to St. Marguerite-Marie Alacoque in Paray-le-Monial.1 It blends testimonies, historical analysis, reenactments, and discussions of Eucharistic miracles to highlight the Sacred Heart's love for humanity and its suffering for sins.1
Steven Gunnell, a former member of the 1990s boy band Alliage, drew from his personal journey of overcoming addiction and depression through rediscovered faith in the 2000s.1 The project was inspired by Sabrina's faith awakening via Paray-le-Monial and Steven's mother's encounter with the Sacred Heart.1
Gunnell views the film's message as essential to understanding Christ's mystery, particularly the Eucharist, where scientific evidence from miracles shows myocardial tissue in the Host.1 He describes the devotion as transformative, reordering life and renewing sacraments.1
The film faced scorn from French cultural elites, who mocked it as overly proselytizing.1 State-owned railway companies refused advertising, citing neutrality, while Marseille's mayor banned a screening just before it began, leaving a full audience waiting outside.1
This resistance stems from France's anticlerical legacy post-1789 Revolution, where Gunnell argues elites reject reminders of the nation's pre-Revolutionary Christian roots.1 He posits that Christ revealed his Heart in France due to a special divine love for the country, akin to Israel's role.1
The film's success has sparked a wave of conversions and spiritual interest.1 Paray-le-Monial sanctuary reports overwhelming visitors, with many seeking confession, consecration to the Sacred Heart, or priestly guidance, prompting staff training for the influx.1
Gunnell attributes this to a broader Western thirst for God amid rising despair, loneliness, and violence among youth.1 It aligns with France's record 10,384 adult baptisms in 2025, a 45% increase, leading to a 2026 national council.1
Personal stories underscore the impact, including Gunnell's estranged father's reception of the Eucharist during filming and a posthumous discovery of a Sacred Heart prayer card.1
Gunnell sees divine timing in global events, such as the U.S. bishops' planned 2026 consecration of the nation to the Sacred Heart for the 250th independence anniversary.1 He links it to addressing societal fractures, echoing Ireland's recent national consecration.1
An English version of the film is underway, and the Gunnells are fundraising for their next project, La Lumière du Monde (The Light of the World), exploring Christ's Luminous Mysteries.1 The film's triumph signals a discreet spiritual awakening in a post-Christian world.1
Investigate Church authority’s role in regulating Sacred Heart devotion
The Catholic Church, through its magisterial authority vested in the Pope and the Roman Congregations, has played a pivotal role in shaping, approving, and regulating devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This devotion, rooted in the love of Christ revealed through Scripture and tradition, has been carefully discerned to ensure its theological soundness, liturgical integration, and spiritual fruitfulness. From initial cautious approvals to widespread promotion and safeguards against excesses, the Church's interventions have balanced private piety with universal doctrine, preventing abuses while fostering deeper union with Christ's redemptive love. This analysis draws on papal encyclicals, conciliar decrees, and official guidelines to trace the Church's regulatory framework.
The Church's engagement with Sacred Heart devotion began with deliberate caution, prioritizing theological foundations over private revelations. As early as 1765, the Sacred Congregation of Rites, under Pope Clement XIII, granted the liturgical celebration of the feast to the Polish bishops and the Archconfraternity of the Sacred Heart in Rome, without directly endorsing the visions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. This approval focused on renewing the memory of Christ's divine love as a symbol of atonement for sins, extending the devotion's reach while abstracting from potentially subjective elements. The Church examined the devotion's intrinsic worth, affirming that the Heart of Jesus, as part of His sacred humanity, merits adoration when united to His divine Person.
A century later, in response to petitions from French bishops and the global Catholic community, Pope Pius IX authorized a more solemn extension. On August 23, 1856, the Sacred Congregation of Rites decreed the feast's observance for the Universal Church, marking a significant escalation from localized privilege to obligatory liturgical celebration. This act, yielding to widespread prayers, transformed the devotion into a "stream in flood" that spread globally, as noted in the feast's own liturgy. Pius IX's promotion extended beyond the feast; he consecrated the Catholic world to the Sacred Heart on June 16, 1875, further embedding it in ecclesial life. These steps illustrate the Church's authority in regulating devotions by vetting them through official bodies, ensuring alignment with core Christian teaching before universal adoption.
Successive popes have actively promoted the devotion through encyclicals, decrees, and liturgical reforms, using their supreme authority to integrate it into the Church's worship and piety. Pope Leo XIII, building on Pius IX's foundation, raised the feast to the dignity of the first class on June 28, 1889, signaling its preeminence. In his encyclical Annum Sacrum (1899), Leo XIII orchestrated a worldwide consecration, urging all faithful to perform the act on June 11, 1899, in principal churches, accompanied by the Litany of the Sacred Heart. He emphasized this as the "crowning perfection" of honors to the Sacred Heart, extending its graces even to non-Christians by commending them to Christ's merciful love. Leo XIII's personal gratitude for his recovery from illness underscored the devotion's role in public thanksgiving. Later, in Mirae Caritatis (1902), he reiterated the consecration's importance amid rising errors, linking it to fidelity to Christ as the Way, Truth, and Life.
Pope Pius XI advanced this further in Miserentissimus Redemptor (1928), defending the devotion against critics and elevating the feast to a double of the first class with an octave. He mandated the annual recitation of an expiatory prayer on the feast day across all churches, formalizing reparation for offenses against Christ's kingship. This decree sanctioned practices like monthly First Friday Communions, which had grown organically but now received apostolic confirmation. Pope Pius XII, in Haurietis Aquas (1956), commemorated the 1856 centenary by calling for global acts of adoration, thanksgiving, and expiation, particularly honoring France's role through St. Margaret Mary. He praised Pius IX's extension as a divine gift, drawing from Isaiah's prophecy of joy from the Savior's fountain.
Pope John XXIII, in his 1960 apostolic letter on the Precious Blood, highlighted how popes from the 16th century onward approved Sacred Heart practices, including offices, masses, and litanies, through encyclicals that expounded its nature and validity. These interventions demonstrate the Church's role in not merely permitting but zealously directing devotions to enhance holiness and counter spiritual neglect.
The Church's regulatory authority extends to defending the devotion's orthodoxy against misinterpretations. In Haurietis Aquas, Pius XII lamented criticisms labeling it as "naturalistic" or "sentimental," affirming the Church's duty to protect it while encouraging its spread. He addressed views that it ill-suits modern needs or is merely optional, clarifying it as essential to Christian life without being compulsory. Theologically, Pius VI's 1794 bull Auctorem Fidei vindicated adoration of Christ's humanity, including the Sacred Heart, against Jansenist calumnies, ensuring it symbolizes divine, not just human, love.
The Church has explicitly condemned rejections of the devotion as "false, rash, dangerous," when it aligns with Apostolic See approvals, as stated in the Enchiridion Symbolorum. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes the Holy See's restraint in popular devotions, intervening only against theological abuses, as in the Sacred Heart's gradual recognition to avoid "extravagances." This cautious approach—approving the feast before St. Margaret Mary's writings—prioritizes scriptural and doctrinal roots over private visions. Such regulations prevent reduction to mere sentiment, grounding the devotion in Christ's atoning sacrifice.
The Church has systematically approved specific practices, granting indulgences and liturgical forms to regulate their exercise. The 1891 Litany of the Sacred Heart, biblical in character, and acts of personal and family consecration—described by Pius XI as principal—received explicit endorsement. Reparatory prayers and First Friday devotions, stemming from St. Margaret Mary's promises, were promoted to renew sacramental life, though the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001) cautions against credulity, urging instruction to prioritize Sunday Eucharist and active Gospel commitment.
In contemporary regulation, the Congregation for Divine Worship emphasizes harmonizing devotions with liturgy, ensuring they enhance, not eclipse, the sacraments. The Church fosters these through confraternities and indulgenced prayers, as in the Raccolta, while local ordinaries handle minor abuses. This framework maintains the devotion's vitality, adapting it to modern needs without diluting its Christocentric focus.
In summary, the Church's authority has been instrumental in elevating Sacred Heart devotion from a localized piety to a universal treasure, through approvals, promotions, defenses, and guidelines that safeguard its doctrinal purity and spiritual efficacy. Rooted in papal decrees and encyclicals, this regulation invites the faithful to draw living waters from Christ's Heart, fostering reparation, consecration, and love amid worldly challenges.